


Uneasy truce

by transfiguredtoad



Series: Uneasy [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, diverges season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transfiguredtoad/pseuds/transfiguredtoad
Summary: Atop a beanstalk, Emma Swan makes a different decision, which has far-reaching consequences for Storybrooke and beyond.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Series: Uneasy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685251
Comments: 30
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

She had the handcuffs on him when she decided to trust him. Hand still on his wrist, eyes locked on his, she read the truth in his eyes, felt the truth in her gut. A half-remembered conversation about mental walls with Mary Margaret flashed before her eyes. Emma nodded and stepped away from him. He cried out as she turned and ran. Emma closed her eyes and told herself she was making the right decision.

She returned to Hook a few minutes later, having collected the keys from Anton the giant. Hook narrowed his eyes at her return. His expression didn’t change while she unlocked the handcuffs and let them hang limply against the wall. Meeting his eyes again, she scowled at him. “Don’t make me regret this,” she said. Hook smirked at her, that smirk that had appeared for the first time when she had called him out on his lies, the first time he had been honest with her.

Climbing down the beanstalk was less difficult than climbing up but all in all unenjoyable. Emma kept the compass firmly in her pocket. Hook kept up idle conversation, just as he had on the way up. Emma responded, not minding it, not preoccupied with finding the undertones as she had been on the way up. He tells her about adventures, about some of his crew, at Emma’s request. He, in turn, asks her for stories of her adventures.

“My life hasn’t been quite as exciting as yours,” Emma said and Hook laughed at her.

“I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“Well, not everyone can have a pirate’s ship,” she replied.

“It used to be a navy ship,” he told her. Emma laughed under her breath.

“Why am I not surprised? What did you do, steal it?”

Hook nodded. “Although I wasn’t yet a pirate. Stealing was rather new on me.”

“What, you want me to believe you were some innocent sailor?” Emma laughed, stopping to turn to him and look him in the eyes. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Maybe not completely innocent, but closer than I am now,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her. She assumed he knew just how depraved he looked when he did that.

“Why did you steal the ship?” Emma asked, curious. Hook’s smirk faltered and he looked down.

“That’s a story for another time, love. We’re nearly at the grou-”

As Hook spoke, the whole beanstalk shook. Emma cursed. It had clearly been ten hours. “Fuck, Hook, we have to get down, now,” she emphasised. He looked at her, clearly saw her mounting panic.

“Jump!” he instructed, before doing as he said himself. Wide-eyed, Emma watched him hit the ground. She heard his curse from way up there on the beanstalk. Letting out an irritated sigh, Emma followed him, whirling through the air and then crashing, right next to the pirate.

Sitting upright, Emma swore at the pain that resounded through her body. She looked to her right and found Hook looking very pleased. “What-” Shaking herself, she glanced at what Hook was watching and found Mary Margaret - her mother - fighting with Mulan. Snow White fighting with Mulan.

Groaning, Emma jumped up. “Mary Margaret, stop, stop,” she cried, grabbing her arms and pulling her back. “Aurora, help me out here!” Hook was still watching and Emma glared at him, making him chuckle. When Mary Margaret finally realised that it was Emma pulling her off the other “princess”, she gasped, crying out. She wrapped her arms around her tightly, causing Emma to chuckle a bit awkwardly and try to pull out of the hug.

Mary Margaret pulled away, holding Emma by the shoulders. “Did you tell Mulan to cut the beanstalk down?” she demanded. Emma sighed.

“Yes. If I didn’t make it down, I needed you to be able to carry on and go and be with Henry.” Mary Margaret shook her head emphatically.

“We stick together,” she said, eyes ablaze with passion. So, this was the woman who fought a war against Regina.

“I just-”

Mary Margaret cut her off, “We stick together.”

XXX

They camped that night, about three hours walk from the beanstalk. Mulan hunted for food and then cooked it over a fire. Emma brought up the idea that Cora would be able to find them because of the fire. Mulan reminded her that, really, they needed Cora to find them at some point or they would be running around the Enchanted Forest trying to pin her down for months. Emma gave her that.

Eating in silence, leaning against trees, the group was rather subdued, despite Hook and Emma having found and collected the compass. Mary Margaret was still angry with Emma and Emma was unmoved on her position that someone had to go back to be with Henry, to protect him from Regina. When it was time to sleep, Mulan suggested they took shifts. Wired from her climb up the beanstalk, Emma offered to take the first one.

Her mother asleep, Aurora’s head in her lap and Mulan slumbering not far from them, Emma allowed herself to lean back against the tree and sigh. “Trouble in paradise, love?” Hook said, standing over her. He passed her his bottle of rum and she smiled, taking a swallow. It was stronger than the rum of her world, but more flavoursome. She returned it to him and he took a seat behind her, stretching out his legs where Emma’s were curled against her body, her arms wrapped around them. “You and the queen,” Hook started.

“Regina?” Emma asked incredulously. Hook furrowed his brow and shook his head.

“No, let’s not start on that bitch. The real queen, your friend,” Hook said and Emma nodded. She had forgotten that her roommate - and her mother - was a queen. “Snow White, although you call her something else. You have an odd relationship.” Emma rolled her eyes, lolling her head back against the rough bark of the tree and reaching out for Hook’s rum.

“She’s my mother,” she informed him. “Obviously, she’s not aged for 28 years, but I have, because she sent me to my world to be able to come and save them and break the curse.” Hook let out a whistle and Emma sniffed out a laugh. “I lived my life with no parents and now I have her and David, or you might know him better as Prince Charming.”

Hook shook his head, nonplussed. “Do you mean King James, her husband?” he asked and Emma nodded. “As a pirate, I’m quite aware of whose goods I’m stealing.” Emma snorted.

“I wouldn’t tell Mary Margaret that,” she suggested. Hook smirked.

“So, you and your mum are the same age,” Hook said with a nod. Emma loved his accent, the way he said ‘mum’. She’d always been a sucker for Irish accents and wondered briefly where in this realm the Irish accent originated. Her chest twinged as she thought of Graham, who must have been from a similar place to Hook. “That must be why you have the lost girl look about you.” Emma remembered his comments at the top of the beanstalk and half-scoffed, half-laughed under her breath, giving him a side-eyed look. He smirked. “So, that’s all there is to it, then. Your parents put you in a magical wardrobe to save the world. Or are there more adventures in heartbreak in the life of Emma Swan?” he asked. Emma chuckled.

“There’ve been a few bad guys too.”

“Oh, aye, guys are the worst.”

Emma laughed and he winked at her. Pirate.

XXX

Emma woke to the sound of her name being called. Her eyes flicked open reluctantly and she flinched, finding her mother crouched beside her, too close for just having woken up. “Emma,” she said again. “Aurora dreamt of Henry.”

Emma sat up straight. “Henry?” she repeated. “My Henry? In the fiery room?”

Mary Margaret nodded, standing up and offering Emma her hand. Emma took it and stood up, rushing over to where Aurora was sitting beside Mulan, who was comforting her. Emma took a deep breath. She didn’t want to freak Aurora out but her son’s safety was at stake. “What did he say, Aurora?” Emma asked. Aurora swallowed.

“Just that his name was Henry.”

Emma nodded, turning around and searching their surroundings as though any of it would help her make sense of this. She saw that Hook was awake, glancing at them with interest, although not standing up and waking properly. “Oh!” Emma cried, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her card-holder. From one of the slots, she took a picture of Henry, from his last photo day at school. Passing it to Aurora, she said, “was this him?”

At Aurora’s nod, Mary Margaret spoke up. “It’s because you have both been under a sleeping curse,” she shared. Emma furrowed her brow. “I’ve been to the fiery room too, Emma. After you leave the sleeping curse, it’s all you see in your dreams until it begins to fade away.”

“Henry is dreaming of this every night?” Emma said, her brow creasing. She saw Henry taking a bite out of Regina’s apple turnover in the back of her mind, saw herself denying the curse and forcing him to do it.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said, breaking Emma from her memories. She had her hand on Emma’s forearm. Emma shook it off. “This is not your fault,” she said, every word emphatic. Emma closed her eyes. If she’d only believed… “We have a way to communicate with them, now; this is good!”

Emma nodded slowly. She could see the benefits of that plan. Through Aurora and Henry, they could make contact with the other side, get information from Regina or Gold that would help them to get home, or to defeat Cora.

“Okay, Aurora, you’re going back to sleep,” Emma said and Mulan protested immediately. Emma rolled her eyes and ignored it. “I need to speak to my son; we need information. Regina or Gold will know how we can defeat Cora or how we can escape from here.” Mary Margaret nodded along with Emma’s plan. “We’ll be right here, Aurora,” Emma assured the princess when she saw the wary look in her eyes, “but you have to do this.”

They got Aurora back into ‘bed’, her head leaning on Mary Margaret’s lap. Mulan stood awkwardly, watching, with her hand on the hilt of her sword. As Emma looked on, Hook came up behind her, shrugging on his thick leather coat. “Who is this Gold?” he asked her quietly, his face completely neutral. Emma cringed.

“You don’t want to know.”

She heard him exhale and could feel his irritation level rise. “Rumplestiltskin, as I thought,” Hook said. Emma turned around to face him, grabbing his arm, and dragged him off a few trees away, far from where Aurora was trying to sleep.

Meeting his eyes, she placed a hand on each of his shoulders. “I know you and Rumplestiltskin have problems and I get them, I really do, and, if there was another option, I promise you I would be taking it, but I have to get home to my son,” Emma said, hoping her wide-eyed insistence would defeat his gritted-teeth annoyance. She sighed and relaxed her arms back to her sides. “And, anyway, don’t you like the idea that, when we get back to Storybrooke, it will have been Rumplestiltskin that brought us there, brought you there to kill him?” Emma said, ignoring the warning signs in her head that told her not to encourage his revenge, not to encourage him to go anywhere near a man who Emma had thought dangerous when he didn’t have magic.

Hook met her eyes. “Admittedly, that would be satisfying,” he said. Emma tried to smile. “I still think this is a bad plan.”

Emma nodded. “I know, and Gold has double crossed us before, but we have to do this. I have to get home to Henry, before Cora gets there.”

“Quite passionate, love,” he said, meeting her eyes. Emma didn’t take hers from his until he did. She had to know that he wasn’t going to betray them. “Let’s go and see what’s happened.”

XXX

They travelled further, once Aurora had awoken and told them that she had conveyed the message. They were heading towards the safezone again, where they knew Cora would come back eventually. It was exhausting, walking, and the weather wasn’t helping. It had rained most of the day. Hook had loaned Emma his leather undercoat to hold over her and Mary Margaret while Mulan and Aurora used his larger one to cover themselves, but it was miserable. When they finally stopped, it was to the relief of all five of them.

They found a mostly-covered alcove, although it wasn’t perfect. In this weather, a fire was impossible, so Mary Margaret and Mulan scavenged for berries and mushrooms while Emma and Hook tried to create a sort of canopy out of Hook’s coats and Aurora settled herself down to go to sleep.

When Mulan and Mary Margaret returned, Mulan gave Emma some berries without a word. Emma sighed. She knew that the warrior was angry at her for asking this of Aurora, especially after they had discovered her burn, but there was no other choice. And Aurora was willing.

Aurora ate a few bites of food before closing her eyes, Mulan and Mary Margaret on either side of her, taking up almost the entirety of Hook and Emma’s canopy.

Emma’s body was protesting still being awake. The constant walking and fighting was exhausting her and she just wanted to sleep for a full night, preferably in a bed that wasn’t just the ground and had a roof that stopped rain dripping down onto her all night. She sighed. Hook glanced at her. “Sorry, just not feeling particularly excited by the prospect of sleeping in the rain, still in soaked clothes.”

“If you need help divesting yourself of those clothes, love, it would be my gentlemanly duty to help you,” he said, smirking at her. Emma glanced up at him, her eyelashes touching her lids. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Unless you’ve got something else for me to wear, yes, take that as a no.”

“I’m sure you’ll give in eventually.” Emma snorted, walking over to the edge of their canopy and sitting under it, so that her head was covered even if her legs weren’t. Hook sat opposite her, not covered in the slightest. Emma gestured to the small amount of space next to her. “As much as I’d love to be pressed up against you, love, I’m perfectly fine here. I’d be a poor sea captain if a little rain scared me off.”

Emma snorted. Mary Margaret cleared her throat and Emma struggled to contain her grin at the look her mother was giving the pirate captain. Clearly, she did not enjoy his innuendos. Emma personally found them rather amusing. It had been a long time since somebody had flirted with her so openly. She’d always enjoyed flirting.

Aurora fell asleep eventually. Mary Margaret and Mulan offered to stay awake while Emma and Hook slept, so Emma closed her eyes, leaning back against the tree that Hook’s coat was tied to. Hook’s breathing deepened quickly, leaving Emma annoyed that she wasn’t sleeping too. 

She lay there for what felt like hours, peeping her eyes open every few minutes to glare at her mother and Mulan who were whispering and at Hook who was slumbering peacefully. He looked far less threatening whilst asleep.

A stick snapping pricked Emma’s ears up and her eyes flicked open, finding her mother and Mulan already on their feet and looking around, each with a hand on a weapon. Emma could say a lot about this world, but clearly it developed better reflexes than her world. Glancing at Hook and noticing he was still asleep, Emma kicked him in the ribs lightly, causing him to stir. When he opened his lips to speak, Emma pressed a finger against her own. His eyes cleared in understanding and, impressively quickly, he was up, no sleep left in his eyes.

And that was when they attacked. Zombies or something like it. Hundreds of them, all brandishing weapons and with no light behind their eyes. Emma fought them as best she could, thankful for Hook and her mother on either side of her, their skills far outmatching her own. Emma’s arm ached far more quickly than she expected. Her heart raced and she was reminded that she hadn’t been to the gym since she left Boston. Stupidly, she wondered if there was even a gym in Storybrooke.

All Emma knew was she had to protect the compass from these creatures. Too many times, Hook reached across and took out one of them who was encroaching closer on Emma, their clear target. It was as if they knew that she had the compass. Perhaps they did. If it weren’t for Hook right now, Emma knew that she would be dead.

Emma’s energy levels were failing. She’d never have guessed that she would have so little stamina, after chasing men for years as a bailsbondperson, but clearly she was not ready to swordfight for extended periods. If she was going to be stuck in this world for awhile, she would have to start training with Hook. Or her mother, who was also keeping herself alive quite well.

Just as Emma stabbed her sword through yet another one of Cora’s zombie army, they all disappeared, slinked away as quickly as they had arrived. Emma breathed, throwing her head back and dropping her sword when Mulan cried out, “Aurora!”

“Fuck,” Emma swore, picking up her fallen sword. Hook chuckled at her and she scowled, approaching Mulan. Aurora was gone and Mulan was panicked, her eyes wide and her movements desperately fast as she searched the small camp for the princess that they all knew had disappeared. “Mulan, she’s gone.”

“I know!” Mulan snapped and finally stilled, closing her eyes and pulling herself entirely straight. At her full height and stillness, Mulan looked all the more warrioresque, the thunderous look on her face completing the picture. “We’re getting her back.”

XXX

A raven arrived hours later, when the relentless pace that Mulan was setting to reach Cora’s camp - and hopefully the princess - was beginning to wear even Snow’s energy down. She knew immediately as the raven began to circle that it was a message from Cora and called them to a halt, ignoring the look of irritation that marred Mulan’s delicate features.

The raven stopped on Snow’s shoulder and allowed her to take the scroll from his foot. He flew off immediately, without the time for a reply. Snow’s stomach sank. This was not an offer that they could respond to.

Snow cleared her throat as she read over the message. “Cora says that she will kill Aurora if we fail to bring her the compass by sundown.”

Mulan’s gasp was shuddering and it made Snow feel tremendous pity for the girl on her left. To her right, Emma and Hook exchanged a look that prickled Snow. The two of them had some sort of connection. Snow did not like that Emma seemed to prefer spending time with the pirate than with her own mother.

“We have to make the trade,” Mulan announced, stepping over quickly to Emma and holding her hand out in expectation. Emma scoffed and took a step backwards. Hook put his arm - and hook - out as though to protect Emma from Mulan, a determined look on his face.

“We worked bloody hard to get that compass,” Hook growled, “and it is the only way to get back to this Storytown of theirs.” Emma nodded though Snow noticed that Emma’s determination was somewhat lesser than Hook’s. Snow could see the pity for Mulan, and for Aurora, on her daughter’s face. And Snow felt it too. Mulan clearly wanted to protect Aurora, because of her oath to Philip, but Snow and Emma had family in Storybrooke who they needed to protect from Cora.

Snow shook her head. “We can try and speak to Henry again, to find out how to overpower Cora.”

“How? Aurora is gone!” Mulan protested. Her eyes were still wild, which made Emma think she was still ready to run.

Snow shook her head. “I’ll go under.”

XXX

The trip to the poppy fields was not far and the process of creating the poppy powder did not take as long as Emma had feared. Soon enough, her mother had slipped into a deep sleep, watched over by Emma. Mulan announced that she would find some water and hunt for food, ready for the journey to meet Cora. Nodding, Emma watched her leave and then turned back to her mother.

“What is bothering you, lass?” Hook said quietly, as though a loud voice would wake Mary Margaret from her sleep. Emma did not take her eyes from her sleeping mother.

“Henry is only under a sleeping curse because I did not believe him.” Hook looked at her, bemused, so Emma continued, “his adopted mother, Regina, hates me, so she sent me an apple turnover with the sleeping curse in it. Henry told me that it was poisoned but I didn’t believe in magic so he ate it to prove his point.”

“And now he has the sleeping curse that was intended for you,” Hook finished and Emma nodded at him. He shook his head.

“Don’t blame yourself, lass,” he said lowly. “Regina is an evil witch. The fault lies at her door and hers alone.” Emma blinked tears out of her eyes. He had mentioned a few days ago that he knew Regina, though only in passing.

“How well do you know Regina?” Emma asked curiously. A haunted look flashed across Hook’s face and then disappeared as quickly.

Hook laughed. Emma wondered if it was forced. “We worked together once or twice,” he shrugged off. Before Emma could ask Hook more on the subject, her mother bolted upright, her eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. She gasped raspingly.

“David,” she groaned as though she were in pain. “Emma, it’s David - he’s under a sleeping curse too.”

Emma’s throat tightened. David could not be woken from the sleeping curse without a True Love’s Kiss - and his True Love was here, in another realm. If they never returned, not only would David be stuck under forever, but Henry would be alone, with nobody but Regina. An irrepressible surge of anger forced Emma to close her eyes. Why had David risked so much? Surely there were other people in Storybrooke that could have gone under.

Shaking her head, Emma opened her eyes and reached for her mother’s hand. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get home.”

Mary Margaret nodded twice, wiping the tears that had leaked from her eyes. She then explained that they needed to go to the castle - her castle - to Rumplestiltskin’s cell, where the weapon to take down Cora could be found. “Where’s Mulan?” Mary Margaret asked as she pulled herself from the floor.

Mulan had been gone for awhile. As Hook explained where she had gone, a horrible sinking feeling filled Emma and she desperately checked each of her pockets for the compass. It was an empty gesture, though, because she already knew that it had gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Mulan and Aurora arrived back in a cloud of joy. Their sudden return had been greeted with much joy from Snow, and much suspicion from Emma and Hook. The description of Aurora’s escape was detailed, her information on Cora interesting, but Emma was dubious and, though she didn’t think she was lying, she thought she was leaving information out.

“She’s lying,” Hook murmured to Emma as they filled up the canteens of all five members of their traveling party. Emma shook her head, glancing back at where her mother was checking Aurora over for signs of illness.

“No, she’s not lying, but she is missing something out.”

“Yes, the fact that Cora freed her. There was no escape,” Hook stressed, his blue eyes widening. Emma shook her head again, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as it got in her eyes while bent down to fill her canteen.

“Look, I have this power that means I know when people are lying.”

“Power?” Hook repeated, half-curious, half-mocking. Emma scowled. “What sort of power? Are you a witch?”

He was taking the piss, just as every other man had. She rolled her eyes and shoved him in the shoulder as she walked past. When he grabbed her arm to force her to turn around, she felt rage flare up in her mind so furiously that she was ready to swing a canteen and hit him in the face. Unfortunately, he caught her arm with his hook before she could.

“Okay, okay, Swan, let’s say you have this lying power, like you’ve said. You did know when I was lying, so let’s assume you’re telling the truth. You’re saying she escaped from Cora.”

Emma shook her head. “No, I’m saying Cora let her escape.” Hook nodded slowly. “We need to keep our eyes on her.”

“Cora is dangerous,” Hook said, his eyebrows raised in that warning way of his. Emma’s teeth played with the inside of her bottom lip. “She is tricking us.”

“I know.”

XXX

On the walk to the castle, Emma stuck by Mary Margaret. When they were walking past a loud river, and Mulan, Aurora and Hook were far enough away, Emma started speaking to her, about the suspicions that she shared with Hook.

To her credit, Mary Margaret listened, did not dismiss Emma’s fears immediately. She even asked questions that suggested she might agree. It made Emma happy inside, that her friend - her mother, whatever - would agree with her. She had not had someone trust her so easily in her life, not like Mary Margaret always did.

And, yet, she let her down this time. Once they had finished their discussion, Emma looked hopefully at her friend and Mary Margaret only shook her head. “Do you think your feelings for Hook might be influencing you?”

Emma suddenly stopped. “Excuse me?”

Mary Margaret turned her head and cocked it to one side, giving Emma a patronising mom look that she did not appreciate. “Oh, Emma, you know what I mean. I understand. He’s very attractive but he’s-”

“I do not have feelings for Hook,” she said, allowing her amused disbelief to colour her tone. He was attractive - she was shocked her mother said so, but she agreed - but Emma didn’t really ever have feelings, for anyone. Her ‘feelings’ as such for Mary Margaret and David, friendship feelings, were the most she’d had for anyone for years - not counting Henry, and those ‘feelings’ were even more so.

Mary Margaret only gave her an amused look and Emma realised that she didn’t believe her. She blinked in horror and continued walking. Her first friend in years, her supposed mother, didn’t believe her about Hook and didn’t believe her about Aurora. Furious, Emma stormed on.

The sooner they got to Rumplestiltskin’s cell, the better, because she wanted to get back to Storybrooke and to Henry, away from her ‘mother’, away from Hook, away from all this madness that made her feel as though she were living in some sort of alternate reality.

XXX

By the time they reached Rumplestiltskin’s cell, there had not been any concrete proof that Aurora was under Cora’s influence and Emma was even starting to doubt herself. Aurora seemed to be acting just as she had in the time they’d spent together before. None of them knew her well enough to truly know her, though. Even Mulan had not known her for long enough.

Emma entered the castle with haste, ignoring her mother’s gasp of recognition and devastation at the state of the castle. Emma did not have that problem. Despite what Mary Margaret said, this had never been her home. She had no emotional attachment to the hunk of rock, except that the weapon that they would use to defeat Cora and reach Henry was in it.

As soon as Emma was within the castle walls, she realised that she didn’t know which way to go and she would have to wait for her mother. Irritation at her mother’s disbelief in her still buzzing beneath her skin, she considered storming off to find some stairs. Surely Rumplestiltskin’s cell would be deep underground.

“Swan, let’s just wait,” Hook said, in that stupid low voice of his, as though he knew her so fucking well to know what she wanted. Emma scowled at him and he only smirked in response, his tongue peaking out from behind his straight teeth. “Your mother will be along swiftly.”

“She’s not my mother,” Emma snapped, just as Mary Margaret appeared, with Mulan and Aurora, her expression as though someone had just slapped her. Which, Emma supposed, she had, emotionally. Inhaling deeply, Emma said, “can we just find this stupid weapon and go home?”

She was so tired of all of this. She just wanted a hug from her son and several days’ worth of sleep. That all seemed so far away.

Mary Margaret nodded but didn’t speak, only taking the torch from Hook’s hand, and leading them through the castle. It was quite a maze. Emma was glad she had not stormed off. It was quite a scary place to get lost.

Despite her assertion that she had no emotional attachment to the place, Emma did feel something as she walked through the halls. This was where she should have grown up, where she should have had a family and been loved. Instead, she was shifted from foster home to foster home. Just as they finally reached some stairs, Emma felt her eyes prickle with tears. She understood her mother’s issue. This should have been their home.

Closing her eyes, Emma reached out for Mary Margaret’s hand and the gesture was accepted immediately. Emma didn’t let go until they reached the final floor, full of imaginings of what life would have been like, with David as her father and Mary Margaret as her mother. The only thing missing would have been Henry. The one good thing that her lonely life ever gave her. 

The cell, when they eventually reached it, looked far less secure than the cell in which Emma found out she was pregnant. The door was open now, but even closed, the bars were so far apart that Emma assumed that Rumplestiltskin - Gold - would have been able to slip out. “How did you keep him in here?” Emma asked, predicting guards and maybe a dragon.

“Magic,” Mary Margaret said and her voice was somewhat sad. Emma closed her eyes. Magic - of course. How could she forget about that oh so lovely recent addition to her life? The pulse of magic that reverberated through Storybrooke when Emma gave Henry true love’s kiss had filled Emma with this momentary, inexplicable joy. Magic.

Hook entered the cell first, scratching at the walls with his namesake. Emma, Mulan, Aurora and Snow followed. Emma gave Aurora a suspicious look, worried about her presence here. Emma was sure that she had some connection with Cora, but what could it be? Emma did not know enough about magic to be able to say.

“Quickly, let’s look and leave,” Emma said, ignoring Mulan’s narrowed gaze watching her watch Aurora. The protective feeling that Mulan had for Aurora was going to cost them, Emma was sure. If her mother had agreed with her about Aurora, they would have outnumbered them and - well, they would have done something. But Mary Margaret did not agree. Perhaps there was a secret Disney princesses pact.

Hook came up with an empty container before long and Emma’s shoulders slumped, meeting his eyes. His darted to Aurora and then returned to her, before shaking a scroll at Emma, who sneaked over to him and took it from behind his back, pretending to still be looking. She did not want Aurora to see whatever was on the scroll, whether there was anything on it at all.

And there was something on it.

It was Emma’s name. Over and over again. Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma. Over and over on the scroll. Emma’s hands shook and she forced Hook to look at the scroll before tucking it into his pocket, ignoring the look she got from her mother. Hopefully she would just think she was touching Hook for the sake of her fancying him.

“It is a trick of the crocodile’s,” Hook murmured, his voice so low that Emma was sure she was the only one who could hear it. Emma nodded but she was shaken. How had Rumplestiltskin know what she was going to be called? She mentally shook herself. There was no need for any of these questions. She could speak to her parents - when they were home.

Emma’s confusion was broken by the sudden crash of the bars that kept Gold in this cell locking down, locking them in. “What the bloody hell?” Hook said and she saw venom in his eyes as he turned to Aurora, whose smirk was inhuman. Hook threw his head back and laughed bitterly. “Oh, how could I be so stupid?” Emma met her mother’s confused eyes. “Cora’s got the princess’ bloody heart. You need to knock her out,” Hook said, nodding at Mulan, who protested vehemently. Aurora said nothing at all.

Emma understood suddenly what she had not known before. Graham’s protests about his heart, about what Regina was doing to him. It took her a moment to return back to reality. She could have saved Graham. If she had only believed him. She had to close her eyes to stem the bile rising in her throat, to stop her sudden dizziness.

When she reopened her eyes, Mulan had knocked Aurora out, the princess stone cold on the floor. “Cora will be here soon,” Hook told her, his mouth a grim line as he tucked the compass into his pocket. Emma swallowed and nodded.

“Right.”

“We need to get that squid ink from the paper,” he said, pulling the scroll from his back pocket. Mary Margaret yanked it from his hand when he had unrolled it, reading what Emma had read, taking in what it meant. Emma hoped it meant more to Mary Margaret than it did to her, so that she could explain it at some point.

“What is squid ink?” Emma asked, Hook’s words registering.

“It’s the ink used on that paper. Squid ink can be used to disable magic,” Hook said, pointing at the scroll and then at the bars that had locked them in. “You have saviours’ magic. You can get the ink from the paper.”

Emma’s eyes widened and panic filled her at the sudden demand. She shook her head quickly. “No. I don’t know how I can do that.”

“Figure it out, princess,” Hook snarled, “because Cora will be here soon.”

Alarm swelled inside Emma. She had no idea how to use magic, had not even believed it existed about a week ago. This was insane, positively insane, and she just wanted to run away from it all.

Hook sighed. “Look, Swan, I believe in you. I believe you can do this.”

Emma shook her head and nodded at the scroll. “Look at that scroll. My name is all over it. Gold made me the saviour. Magic didn’t choose me, I didn’t choose me. Gold chose me. I am not some hero to rescue us.”

Hook shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck, Swan. The bleeding pixies could have chosen you for all I care. You have magic. Who chose you doesn’t change that. So, now, think about happy thoughts or angry thoughts and get us out of here.”

A laugh behind them proved it was too late. Cora had arrived. Emma turned to see her, in all her evil beauty. She smirked. “You should listen to the captain, Emma, dear,” she said. “He is quite right.” Emma didn’t have anything to say. She yanked the scroll out of her mother’s hands and tried to bring some magic to her fingers, as though she knew how to do that, or even what magic felt like when it was from her own power.

Cora and Hook spoke while she did it. She could hear their voices but did not take in what they were saying, too busy concentrating on summoning some sort of power. It was too abstract, too nonsensical for Emma to successfully do it. She wiggled her fingers, shook her head from side to side and stared at the paper in any effort to elicit some of this so-called magic she had.

Nothing worked until - “Emma!”

Her mother’s cry shook her into action and she span around, to find her mother had already wrenched the scroll from her hands and was creeping forward to where Cora was watching her. The most self-satisfied grin Emma had ever seen on Mary Margaret’s face crept up as she lowered her head to the paper - and blew.

The dust scattered in the air. For a heart-wrenching moment, Emma thought her mother had wasted it all. But she was wrong. The squid ink simply floated its way to the magic in the gates and disabled it, freeing the five of them. Hook cried out in surprise and Emma simply beamed.

“Very clever, Snow,” Cora said, raising her hand. Emma closed her eyes. This was the moment that her magic was necessary, more so than earlier. She had to save her mother. And yet she panicked. Cora chuckled and, when she flicked her hand, Emma watched Mary Margaret, her heart in her throat, for what felt like minutes, until she heard choking sounds to her other side.

All of Emma’s body fell, every muscle slumped, everything around her slowed down. Hook was choking, magically choking, and Cora’s chuckle was in Emma’s head, repeating, repeating, and Hook was choking. She had taken his breath. She had stolen his breath. Magic could kill. Magic could choke a man to death and Emma wasn’t sure she even wanted magic but she had it and she only knew that because -

A flash of light crashed out of her. It was not subtle, nor artful, but it was powerful. Emma wasn’t sure if it would have a name. It was gold and loud and almost seemed physically solid. And it knocked Cora off her feet and out of consciousness.

Hook laughed triumphantly as breath came out of Emma in pants. She suddenly felt as though she could fall over with exhaustion. She jolted at the feeling of Hook slapping her shoulder and turned, ignoring her mother’s look of wonderment. “Come on, who knows how powerful Swan’s magic is? Cora could wake at any moment. If we wish to reach this land without magic, we ought to hurry!” This was all said with the arrogance and joy of a man who had recently succeeded.

Emma felt inclined to join in. She grinned, watched Hook steal a jar of dust from Cora’s pocket and sling Aurora over her shoulder and followed him out of the dark corridor, up the stairs and back into the fairytale world.

XXX

Hook led them to a lake that had magical power. He had explained it on the journey there, about the lake that would restore anything to its previous state. Emma had been dubious but Mary Margaret had confirmed it and told a story about David following his ex-fiancée there to save her true love. A classic David and Mary Margaret - or, rather, David and Snow - story. She then told the story of their first wedding and David’s mother and Emma blamed the tears that sprang to her eyes on the exhaustion.

Emma was surprised when, at the pace he had been setting, Hook suddenly stopped at a huge crate. Emma had been wanting to stop for hours. She had daydreamed of her bed, of a duvet, of the ground. The magic seemed to have taken everything out of her. Her strength was entirely based on the assumption that she would reach Henry within hours, as soon as they reached Lake Nostos.

“Why are we stopping?” Emma whined. “I’m going to fall over from exhaustion if we stop, Hook. Let’s keep going. Cora could be here at any moment.”

“This is it,” Hook said and his voice was small, low, disheartened. Not the voice of the man who had been regaling them with pirate stories for the past hours of walking.

It took a moment for Emma to discern his meaning but then she realised. This was it. This was Lake Nostos and the water was gone. “No,” she moaned. She heard Mary Margaret gasp with horror behind her. “No, no, this can’t be it.”

Hook nodded grimly. “It is. Fuck,” he swore, clenching his fists. Emma wondered if he wanted to punch something. He crouched to the ground and put his face in his hands. “So fucking close,” he muttered. Emma had almost forgotten about his revenge on Gold, had almost thought that he was there to help them.

Slumped shoulders, Emma looked around them. Surely there was some magic left. Surely a lake drying out could not be the end of magic. She had magic now. “What if there’s some below the surface?” Emma asked slowly, a thought beginning to form. Hook looked at her curiously. She flexed her fingers. She had magic. She had magic. She remembered what it felt like to have it swirling beneath her fingers. She remembered the feeling.

Excitement grew inside her. She could make the portal work again by bringing water back to the surface. Her fingers tingled. Was that magic? Or was that a false alarm?

Hook stood, his eyes wide as he came to the same conclusion as Emma. “If you wish, we could have Mulan choke me? That seemed to work the previous time,” Hook said with his signature teasing waggle of eyebrows and smirk. Emma only pursed her lips, wondering if that would in fact work. That had been what charged her magic last time.

She shook her head and then her entire body, extending her arms and closing her eyes. She could do this. She had been born to be the saviour, even if Gold had made it so. It was her destiny and a tiny bit of magic was nothing to breaking the Curse. This would get her home to Henry. She inhaled.

CRASH!

Emma felt the magic, she felt the stir of magic in the atmosphere but it was different. It didn’t come from her, she didn’t feel it form. Snapping her eyes open, Emma found Cora there, laughing maniacally. Emma almost appreciated Regina’s lack of crazy compared to this bitch. Emma wasn’t going to lose to her, though. She had magic. She could bring back a fucking lake.

Hook had his sword out. He was going for Cora. It only took a wave of her hand to take it from him, fling it to the other side of the crater.

Fuck. It was that easy for Cora to do that. If it could be that easy, Emma could bring a fucking lake back. She could do it. She aimed her hands at the ground. She could see Cora’s face as she smirked, could see Hook’s annoyed helplessness as his sword was flung from his hand.

It was no use. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it.

Her eyes opened again, finding Hook watching her. She could see that he believed in her in his eyes. Hope burgeoned in her chest. Her fingers prickled. She turned to her mother, who was fighting verbally with Cora, dodging her attacks with remarkable skill, Mulan by her side with a magic-resistant sword.

Emma could feel something inside her, it was swelling, it was coming. The water was coming. She could see it in her mind’s eye, the gentle lapping of a wave, a babbling brook- 

And then Cora attacked Mary Margaret. She hit her with something, throwing her across the crater.

The brook became a wave, a tsunami, a sea. The whole ocean was in Emma’s mind’s eye. And then it was in her real eye. She could see a spring in the centre. It broke the earth and spurted. Emma grinned. They’d done it. She could use magic.

She threw out another blast to Cora, throwing her into the woods beyond. “Come on!” she shouted to Hook and Mary Margaret. Mulan and Aurora were not coming and, frankly, they had been more trouble than they were worth. “Hook, the dust!”

The wardrobe dust that he had taken from Cora. As the wardrobe had got her to the world without magic once, it would do so again. The portal swirled immediately when Hook threw the dust into the water and pulled the compass from his pocket.

He winked at her, audaciously, and then they were gone, into another swirling black hole. Home.


	3. Chapter 3

“Mom! Mom!” were the first words that greeted Killian Jones into the Land Without Magic. Groaning and turning over, he found that the noisy pest belonged to Emma. Killian removed his previous judgement and tried not to smile to see Emma wrapping the boy up in her arms. He had dark hair, darker than Killian had expected. Looking at him reminded Killian of Baelfire. He pushed the squirm in his stomach aside. 

The young lad, Henry, was speaking, eagerly, quickly, like all youths. Killian wondered if he had been so eager and happy at his age. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he had certainly not been. He listened to what the lad was saying. “Rumplestiltskin, Mom, he was going to destroy the portal, but my mom saved you!”

Sitting up abruptly, Killian’s eyes widened. Rumplestiltskin. He was here. He was in the realm of the crocodile - and the bastard had tried to kill him again. Growling, he jumped up off the ground, attracting Swan’s attention immediately.

"Where is he?" Emma gave him a look that he couldn't place, a sort of glare that Killian couldn't think of a reason for.

"He's gone."

It was not Emma who spoke. Turning, Killian could not hide his wry smile. "Well, if it isn't the Evil Queen. You are looking spry, Regina."

Regina's eyes glinted. She looked precisely as young as she had when Killian had last seen her, though she had far less dramatic clothing, now. She looked far less evil. The outfit was interesting. He could see most of Regina’s lower legs. Briefly, he wondered if Swan ever wore such short clothing. He was sure that he already preferred this world.

"I was wondering where you had got to, Hook," Regina said, her voice precisely as it had been when she had last spoken with him. 28 years ago.

Killian cocked his head, narrowing his eyes and remembering the devious lies that Regina had told him to make him work for her. "I decided I wasn't totally on board with your little plan. You missed out some significant aspects."

Regina only smirked, riling anger inside Killian’s chest. "We all have to lie sometimes, Captain. You should understand that as a pirate."

Scoffing and copying her smirk, Killian said, "Oh I do, love, but I make it a priority not to lie to my allies."

Regina barked out a laugh. "So, when you betrayed me to work with my mother, that wasn't a lie."

Hook chuckled. "No, love, that was a snap decision built on your lies and the promise of a retained memory with your lovely mother."

Regina scowled. Hook smirked. "You owe me her heart."

Hook scoffed. "You hardly delivered on your side of the deal, your majesty, so I would politely like to ask you to fuck off."

Emma's mother gasped in horror at Hook's language and Hook had to appreciate Regina's smirk at the smallest things irritating her enemy. Mary Margaret said, "Henry is here, Hook!"

Hook turned to the lad, who was still in his mother's arms. Emma was glaring, which made the side of Hook's mouth quirk upwards. He stepped forward, stretching out his hand to shake Henry's. Henry took it, a small pleased smile on his face. "A pleasure to meet you, lad. Your mother has told me all sorts about you."

"Are you really Captain Hook?” Henry asked, as eager as a young pup.

Hook smirked. "My reputation extends to this realm?" He cocked an eyebrow at Emma but frowned at her snort.

"Not the reputation you want, buddy." 

Before he could clear that statement up, they were interrupted by another woman's voice, "are we going to go and wake David up or what?”

The voice was attached to a very attractive body. Hook smirked. "I'll follow you wherever you wish to go, lass."

The woman rolled her eyes and shook her long dark hair. She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by Emma's hand on Hook's arm, pulling him away. "Okay, Casanova," she said, using another one of her odd terms. "You can stay on our sofa tonight and start making plans to sleep your way through the population tomorrow."

Killian grinned at the prospect and then furrowed his brow, thinking back on what she said. "What is a sofa?"

XXX

Mary Margaret was practically shaking with excitement as they approached the apartment building. Emma had her arm slung around her son’s shoulders, Hook trailing behind them, rolling his eyes at every romantic notion that Mary Margaret and Ruby discussed. Emma found it rather romantic too, that her mother was about to wake her father with True Love’s Kiss. It was the good ending that every fairytale had, and her parents were living it.

True Love was a concept that Emma had not understood until she had seen Henry, lying there, dead or as good as. And, then, she knew. She knew that what she had thought was ‘true love’, what she thought that she had felt for Neal, though he had clearly not felt it for her, was not true love. It was hardly even love.

This all-consuming, maddening, despite all feeling was love. She loved Henry, truly. She loved Mary Margaret, as her friend, truly. Maybe one day she would love both of her parents, as her parents, truly. She wasn’t sure if she wanted that or not, yet, but one day she’d know. And True Love like her parents had for each other was not something that Emma ever expected to find. But knowing her parents’ love made her sure of what she didn’t want, if she were ever to find anything like that again. She didn’t want anything less. She would not settle for less.

And, five minutes later, when Emma got to be in the presence of the effects of a True Love’s Kiss, she was reminded yet again of what she was made of. She smiled as the light faded and her father let out a groan as he awoke.

“Well, isn’t this romantic?” Hook said sarcastically. Emma snorted. Henry grinned. He’d whispered to Emma on the walk back to the apartment that Hook was ‘so cool’, an opinion that Emma did not share but which she understood in a teenage boy.

David blinked rapidly and looked away from Mary Margaret to Hook. “Who the hell is this?”

Hook smirked. “Killian Jones, at your service, your majesty,” he said, ducking his head in mock reverence. Emma had almost forgotten Hook’s real name. She wondered what he preferred to go by and then realised it was probably a stupid question. Why would he want anything but his birth name? Even so, it felt far too intimate to start calling him Killian, especially when no one else did.

David narrowed his eyes and they dropped to Hook’s hand - or, rather, his hook. “Captain Hook,” David growled.

“You know him?” Emma asked incredulously. The Enchanted Forest was such a small world.

David shook his head. “No, but he stole a ship from my kingdom a long time ago. 300 years or so. How are you still alive?”

Emma choked at 300 years. She didn’t hear Hook’s response. “You’re old,” she said when she really took in what that meant. She knew the story of Neverland, made her own assumptions of how he was so old.

Hook narrowed those baby blue eyes at her, appearing extra thin because of his guyliner. “Do I look old to you, love?” he said, his voice low and sultry. Emma scoffed, narrowing her own eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but David cut her off.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he said and, when Emma looked back at him, he had swung his knees over the side of the bed, ready to stand. Mary Margaret hurried to help him up, but she kept her eyes on Emma, almost incredulous in the disbelief that was shining in them. Emma felt slightly guilty for her flirting with Hook. It was a difficult habit - an enjoyable habit - to break.

“Hook is staying here for the night,” Mary Margaret said reluctantly, as though it were a piece of bad news. Emma pursed her lips, controlling her eyes from rolling.

“On the sofa,” David stated firmly. Emma glared at her father, unable to believe that he was really going to try and control her life, as though he hadn’t been missing for the past twenty-eight years.

“Where else?” Hook said, cocking an eyebrow and winking at Emma. Emma bit her lip to contain her laughter.

XXX

“Do you think Hook has ever had tacos?” Henry asked inquisitively as they entered the apartment building. Emma tried to contain her smile as she closed the door with her hip.

“I doubt they have many tacos in the Enchanted Forest, Henry,” Emma said. They started walking up the stairs.

Henry shrugged. “They might have something similar. You never know.”

Emma smiled. “Maybe you’re right. I’m sure he’ll like it, after he’s figured out what it is.” Henry laughed.

“What did he say he was doing today?” Henry asked. They reached their apartment and Emma struggled to pull the keys from her pocket, balancing the bag in her arms as she was.

“I don’t know, kid.”

Henry started to ask another question as they entered the apartment but Emma’s brain stopped processing whatever he was saying as she saw what was before her.

“Oh my God,” she said, mouth falling open. Her parents were together. In bed. Naked. She adjusted the bag in her hands as she nearly dropped it.

“What?” Henry said, following her in as her parents, red-faced and giggling, pulling the covers up over them. “What’s going on?”

Emma blinked. “We’re making tacos is what’s going on,” she said with a false smile. “I’m just going to go and- go and get changed.” As fast as she could, she ran upstairs to her room and sank down on her bed, wondering when the hell her life had turned into this teenage nightmare, walking in on her parents having sex.

She was still processing the horror when her father called up, “where’s the pirate?”

Her lips quirked at the phrasing of the question. “I don’t know,” she hollered, irrationally annoyed at her father, her mother too. They all lived there and a little decorum wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?


	4. Chapter 4

It was astonishing how quickly Granny could prepare a party. When Mary Margaret, Emma, David and Henry arrived that evening to the diner, they found welcome home banners strewn around the café and more lasagne than even the population of Storybrooke would know what to do with. While Mary Margaret and David smiled under the attention and thanked everyone for the party, Emma slinked off to the counter to order a drink. She found Hook at the bar.

“Where have you been?” she demanded when she arrived by him. Hook smirked, turning his head towards her.

“I didn’t realise you had grown so attached to me, Swan,” he said, his voice all sultry and Hook-like. Emma rolled her eyes.

“I suppose you were doing all sorts of dark deeds?” she said, holding up two fingers at Granny for shots. Hook chuckled, finishing off his own drink of what she assumed was rum.

“I can think of some dark deeds I’d like to do to you,” Hook murmured, his voice low. His words shocked Emma and she turned to him in shock as Granny passed her two shots. He smirked at her wide-eyed look.

“How many of those have you had?” she said, nodding at his rum.

Hook smirked. “A few. I don’t need rum to imagine being in bed with you.” Rolling her eyes at him, Emma pushed one of her shots over to him. He furrowed his brow. “What is this, Swan?”

“It’s called sambuca. It’s liquor.”

Hook shrugged and took the small glass. He reached it towards her so that they could clink them. “Cheers,” Emma said with a smile before throwing back the shot. Hook copied her. “Why are you sitting over here on your own?”

Hook leaned back on the barstool and Emma watched him carefully. She wasn’t sure if he fully understood the concept and did not want him to fall off. She wondered if they had barstools in the Enchanted Forest. “Some of your townsfolk are rather reluctant to speak with a pirate. I can’t imagine why.”

Emma smiled. “That works rather nicely for me.”

Hook gave her a curious look. “Why are you over here with me?” He nodded in the direction of the main party and Emma followed his eyesight. She found her mother and father in conversation, smiling, Henry by their sides. Emma cringed slightly.

“Maybe I don’t want to hear another true love rehashing.” Hook’s smirk quirked upwards and he ordered two more drinks in the same way Emma had. “Copycat.”

“You have to learn to adapt, darling. That’s a way of life.”

Emma knew that very well. “Where were you this afternoon?” she asked, changing tack. She didn’t want to get into deep, personal conversations with Captain Hook.

“Did you miss me, Swan?” She quirked an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes, throwing back another shot. Emma did the same. “Just in case you needed the reminder, Swan, I’m not your child or your lover. I can do as I wish.” Emma pursed her lips at his sudden abrasiveness. “And I still have my revenge to exact.”

Something dropped into Emma’s stomach, possibly her heart, possibly the gravity of what he was saying. She’d not really thought about what he would do when he arrived, had assumed that they were friends now, or maybe just allies. Hook must have seen what she felt on her face because he sneered at her and said, “What did you think, princess? That I would give up my revenge because you let me sleep on your sofa?”

Anger unfurled in Emma’s chest. How dare he dismiss her in that way? She wasn’t sure if she was angry because he was telling her that he didn’t appreciate her or because he was disappointing her. Either way, she didn’t want to hear anymore. Shoving her glasses to the other side of the bar, she levelled Hook with the most venomous glare that she could summon and stalked off to join her parents.

XXX

Killian watched Emma walk away and he hated himself for upsetting her - hated himself for making her think the worst of him - hated himself for being the worst of him, when he had been a good guy with Emma, so far. He had been good, for selfish reasons, but good nonetheless.

Good like Liam was, like Killian used to be. He dismissed thoughts of Liam. Going down that sad path was a recipe for disaster.

Killian decided that he was feeling odd because he had eaten too much of her odd pie with tomatoes and having drunk too much alcohol. Those odd shots of Swan’s were rather distasteful and he could feel the change in liquor - the mixing of liquor - making his head swim. There was a reason he stuck to ale and rum.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, pirate.”

Regina’s voice was not a welcome distraction, though any other distraction would be welcome. He wished that Swan was still there. She was much lovelier to look upon.

“Well, Regina, I hear it is a free country.”

Regina sat down and she pursed her lips at the barmaid - an elderly woman, not the sort of barmaid that Killian was used to - until she came over to serve her. She did not receive service as quickly as Emma. Killian could imagine why. He ordered his own rum after Regina ordered something that Killian didn’t recognise.

“Is there a reason you are sitting beside me, your majesty? I am not popular company this evening.”

“Well, pirate, I am never popular company in this town, so perhaps we are not exactly strange bedfellows.”

“I assure you, Regina, love, we would be very strange bedfellows.” She gave him an amused look and Killian sipped his drink. “What do you want?”

“Testy,” Regina taunted. “Did you have a falling out with Miss Swan? Are you going to have to warm your own bed this evening?” Killian took a gulp of rum. Although Regina had misread the relationship between he and Swan, she had clearly seen their argument and that was what Killian was currently ‘testy’ about, though he should have been focussing on Rumplestiltskin and his revenge, now that it was so close.

Regina looked over her shoulder and Hook followed where her eyes went. Though she was looking at the whole group, Hook’s eyes sought out Swan immediately. She did not look entirely comfortable, until she was speaking with her parents or Henry. With the others, she looked stilted and not her usual self. Hook felt a pang in his heart. She had been herself with him. Maybe that meant something.

Not that it mattered. She didn’t matter. This town didn’t matter. Nobody mattered except Milah.

“Feeling left out, your majesty?” Killian sneered at Regina, who only chuckled.

“Oh, Captain, don’t pretend that you don’t want to be there as much as I do. Can’t you imagine, standing over there, your arm wrapped around Miss Swan’s shoulders, holding a beer, talking with her family, her friends, my son? I bet you want that more, right now, than you want Rumple’s head on a platter.”

Hook growled and slammed his drink down. The picture Regina painted was close to what Hook was imagining, though he didn’t necessarily care for the rest of the people around her. “I’m far closer to it than you are, Regina,” he hissed at her.

She inhaled sharply and, before Killian could even smirk at getting under her skin, she had thrown her drink over him. Cursing, Killian wiped his eyes, glaring at her. With one final venomous look, the Evil Queen stormed out of Granny’s diner and stalked away.

He was using some paper serviettes on the surface to dry himself off when Swan approached, still scowling. “What’s the problem?” she demanded.

Killian rolled his eyes. “I thought you were still mad at me, Swan.”

“I am,” she said defensively. Killian smirked at her, hoping that his hair wasn’t too flat.

“Then why do you care?” he whispered, leaning in and enjoying the sight of her eyes widening and her cheeks flushing. She didn’t even answer, spinning on her heel and returning again to her parents. Killian found that her father was glaring at him but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Shrugging, he grabbed his coat and stood, leaving the diner before he pissed anybody else off.

He didn’t know what he wanted from Emma but he wasn’t doing himself any favours. After tonight, she would be just like everybody else. He would always be a villain in their eyes.

As he left the diner and the door made an odd twinkling noise, he felt a jolt in his heart. The Jolly. It was here.

XXX

It was cloaked but he knew where it was immediately. After some close shaves when his crew wasn’t up to scratch, in which he’d nearly lost his ship, Killian had had a witch enchant it so that it was linked to his heart, so that he would always be able to find it. His true love, that had stayed with him throughout the realms and throughout the ages. Here again, with him.

Of course he knew exactly who was on his ship. There was only one person who had the ability to bring it here, who would be able to find her way to Storybrooke, who would have even thought to use his ship.

Cora.

Killian found the steps easily and, once he had taken the first step, the entire ship revealed itself to him. He sighed with relief to be reunited with it. It was hard being apart from the only constant in his life for so long. He supposed he could say the same of his crew, but he was far fonder of his ship.

She was waiting for him, of course. She was always two steps ahead of him. Smirking at the sight of her, he said, “Cora, what a pleasure.”

“Hook.”


	5. Chapter 5

Emma watched Henry’s bus drive off with a smile and a wave at her son who watched her as he left for school. She turned when the bus had taken the corner, disappearing from her sight. The best thing about dropping Henry off at the bus stop was that it was right by Granny’s, giving her an excellent excuse to buy a good breakfast.

Granny greeted her warmly as Emma leaned on the counter patiently, waiting for Granny to finish up a drinks order she was making. Emma was quite tired. Perhaps she would get an extra shot of coffee in her cinnamon latte this morning. She hadn’t slept very well last night.

At about five am, she’d woken up to her phone buzzing. Irritatingly, it had been a cold call, leaving her awake and thirsty. She crept downstairs, checking that Henry was still snoring happily. Her parents, too, seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She reached the kitchen, rolling her neck as she reached for a glass from the cupboard, filling it up with the tap on a low setting, so as not to wake her family. She sipped it idly as she wandered back to the stairs, wondering whether she would be able to fall asleep again. And then she had seen the couch.

The couch had been empty. It had plagued Emma’s mind to the extent that she had, indeed, not been able to sleep again. Where was Hook? Yes, they had argued. Yes, she was pissed with him but she did want to know where he was. It wasn’t as though she cared particularly. She just wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead, or tied up in Rumplestiltskin’s cellar, or drowning at the bottom of the sea, with a stomach full of nothing but alcohol.

Emma’s stomach rumbled with hunger and fear, her fingers tapping the counter in front of her, earning her an annoyed look from Granny, who must have thought her impatient. She brought her arms down to her sides.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long for her answers about Hook. The moment a body came to stand behind her, one hand curling around her waist, holding tightly, she knew that it was Hook. She started to turn, in anger, to tell him to get his hands off her, despite the heat rolling off her. His hook slid into her belt loop before she could fully turn. He tutted in her ear, the breath warm and brief. She hated the way her body was reacting.

“Don’t overreact, Swan,” he purred in her ear. Emma looked up to see Granny watching them distastefully. Her face flamed, probably adding to her guilty demeanor rather than taking away. “I have to talk to you and it has to look natural.” Emma stiffened. Something was wrong. “Ah, ah, Swan,” he admonished lightly. Emma tried to make herself relax. His fingers were drawing pictures on her stomach. She forced her shoulders to leave where they were keeping her ears company.

Plastering a smile on her face, Emma turned her head slightly to murmur in what she hoped looked like a seductive manner, “So this is what natural looks like.” Hook pulled her even closer, his hand moving lower on her leg. Emma’s head moved further, so that she could meet his eyes, which were sparkling and yet dark at the same time. Emma flinched away so that the effect he had on her was not so visible. He held her fast.

“I just wanted to feel your arse,” he whispered, caressing her outer thigh. A shiver ran down Emma’s spine. Trying to keep in her laughter, Emma moved her hand so that it was on top of Hook’s and smiled flirtily as she brought it back up to her hip. Hook chuckled. “I need to speak with you, somewhere nobody will be able to hear us, Swan.” His tone was urgent enough that Emma understood that something truly was wrong.

She nodded slightly and moved her hand around to squeeze his ass, a move that she immediately regretted upon discovering how toned it was. Smirking slightly, she said, “Let’s go for a drive, pirate,” looking up at him through her eyelashes. He cleared his throat as he stepped away, loosening his hold on her.

Emma hoped she really had got to him as he had got to her, as they left Granny’s Diner, earning themselves yet another dirty look from the proprietress. Emma’s car was not so far away. She had driven there the previous night and then walked home with Mary Margaret and David, after she’d had something to drink. She unlocked the car with an intense look at Hook. He took the passenger seat and Emma slid into the driver’s seat.

“Where are we going then, Swan?” the pirate said seriously. Emma shook her head, closing the door behind her. Hook gave her a confused look and Emma only grinned, before shifting so that she could swing a leg over Hook’s lap and get comfortable as she straddled him.

His eyes bugged and he cleared his throat, Emma rocking forward gently on his lap. “Come on, pirate,” she whispered in his ear, before bending to press a light kiss to his neck. He cursed lightly, boosting Emma’s self-confidence tenfold. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her lips did not ease their work, nor did her rocking hips. She would be lying if she said that she had not imagined being in this position before, although she had never imagined it in her car. She thought she knew what would be haunting her dreams this evening.

“Cora is back,” Hook said, his voice choked. Emma froze momentarily but continued in her actions, hoping that anyone who saw them - if Cora saw them - would think that this was a legitimate hookup. Emma listened carefully as Hook explained where he had gone last night, to find Cora on his ship. “Anyhow, she thinks I’m back on her side and has ordered me to seduce you for information.”

Emma tore her lips from his neck and met his eyes, amused by this. “What does Cora want?”

“Regina,” Hook replied hoarsely.

Groaning, Emma said, “For fuck’s sake, let’s just let her have her.” She rocked forward on Hook’s lap, wondering what he would do if she just kissed him and listened to the chemistry between them. Talking about Regina was not the first thing on her mind at that moment, no matter how much she knew that it should be.

“Swan, you are going to have to stop doing that,” the pirate growled and Emma smirked wickedly. There was a connection between them, she couldn’t deny it. His hand on her hip had done enough to her to convince her of that. And being in this position with him was undeniably hot and especially so for him, if what she was feeling between her legs was anything to go by.

Emma opened her mouth to speak when they were interrupted by a loud knock on the window. The gasp that came out of her mouth was involuntary and rocked through her entire body when she saw her father’s angry face at the window. She cursed violently as she clambered off Hook, hitting her head on the mirror as she did. Hook was chuckling beside her and she shot him a glare. Passing him her car keys, she told him which button to press when he left and to give her them back at dinner that evening.

“I’ll see you there, love,” he called after her as she scrambled out of the car, face heated, and followed her father to work without a word.

XXX

When Killian arrived at the flat that evening, he was greeted at the door by Swan, wearing the same clothes that she was wearing that morning. He remembered with a jolt the way she had looked on top of him in her car but put that thought aside as Emma’s boy greeted him.

Killian shook his hand and, as he did, turned to Swan, asking, “What did you lock me up against on the beanstalk?” Emma blinked with confusion but Killian continued to look at her expectantly until she stammered out the right answer. Killian nodded. “I need you to check your family, check that Cora isn’t spying on us,” he said in a low voice.

Again, Swan’s face was a picture of befuddlement but she did what he said anyway. She trusted him anyway. It was a satisfying feeling. She took a moment or two, muttering with her son and then her parents, before giving him an assuring nod. They sat down on the chair, the Charmings squeezed onto one lovechair, Swan and her son on the long sofa and Killian perched on the arm of the same one.

He told them everything, all he knew about Cora, about why she had come, about what she was like before, about her relationship with Regina. He told them how he had seen her last night, told them that he had promised to get information from Emma in return for his safety from Cora and help in killing Rumplestiltskin.

“And she believed you?” Swan’s mother asked seriously.

Hook nodded. “I believe so, but she’s a cunning witch. There’s always the possibility that she was lying or tricking me.”

The queen nodded slowly. “Cora is dangerous. We can’t allow her to run riot across Storybrooke.” Hook wasn’t sure how well the queen knew Cora, but he did know that Regina hated Swan’s mother and it was quite possible that Cora would use that to garner the affection of her daughter.

Swan sighed. “Cora hasn’t actually committed a crime here yet.” Hook gave her a disbelieving look. “She could just be here for Regina.”

“And the ocean tastes like sugar and diamonds fall from the sky instead of rain,” Hook said, receiving an annoyed glance from Swan in response. “You don’t know Cora, love. She isn’t just here for a mother-daughter bond.”

“Hook’s right, Emma,” her mother said in a breathless tone. “Cora is dangerous. She is more powerful than Regina. If she’s here for power…” she trailed off. Hook shook his head, glancing at Emma.

“She won’t win,” the prince said strongly. Hook sneered at him.

“If Regina and Cora team up, your highness,” Hook said, with a sarcastic note on the epithet, “there is no one in the town but Rumplestiltskin who could match them for power.”

Emma hummed. “And his loyalty is hardly resolute.”

Hook scoffed. “We won’t be trusting him for anything.” The Charmings shared a look that Hook ignored, focussing on Emma and her boy.

“My mom won’t go back to Cora. She promised me that she was finished with magic,” the boy said. Hook was reluctant to reply, watching Swan as she formulated her own thoughts. The relationship between Henry and Regina was precarious, according to Swan. If Hook was Swan, there was no way that he would allow Henry to keep seeing his adoptive mother. Regina was cold and calculating and Hook would not put it past her to use her son for her own gain, especially against Emma. The thought turned Hook’s insides sour.

“For now, we trust Regina,” Emma said, looking away from Henry, though she hadn’t said anything to him. Killian opened his mouth but received a withering look from Emma. “For now, we trust Regina.”

And that was that. They had dinner together and discussed other things. Hook expected to feel antsy, as though he should be somewhere else, but he felt very comfortable. There were times where he felt as though he were Emma’s partner, as though they were having a meal, two couples, and Swan’s charming son.

Henry showed Killian how to play some sort of gaming device, with white sticks that controlled an oddly drawn man on their television screen. Emma had watched him with interested eyes and Killian had done his best to succeed but was soundly beaten by first Henry, then Emma’s father.

“Come on, Swan, challenge me,” Killian offered. Emma only smirked, sipping her rum, which she had mixed with an odd brown liquid called ‘coke’.

“You two can play on,” Emma’s father said, his tone amused. Killian struggled to remember the anger that had been on his face when he had caught Emma on top of him in her vehicle that morning. “Mary Margaret and I will get Henry to bed.” Emma thanked her father and wished him goodnight, watching them disappear upstairs, where Killian knew that Henry’s bed was.

“You are welcome to use this again,” Emma said, tapping the sofa that Killian was perched on, his white stick in his hand, ready to play again.

Killian smiled. “You are kind, Swan.”

“So, my parents’ bed is right there,” Emma said, nodding. Killian furrowed his brow, glancing and wondering where on earth Swan was going with this. Emma shrugged. “Do you still have that rum?”

XXX

Emma sank down, leaning back against the door to the loft. Rather than stay in the apartment, where the light would disrupt her parents’ sleep, and where everything they said would be overheard, Emma had brought them, and Hook’s flask, out into the hallway, where Hook was leaning against the post between the two sets of stairs. “Very private,” Hook said dryly.

Rolling her eyes, Emma reached across and prised the flask out of Hook’s hands. “Nobody else lives here. There’s storage upstairs and a shop downstairs.”

Hook nodded and Emma felt his eyes on her as she drank from his rum. They were silent for a moment, until Hook spoke, “I wanted to apologise, lass, for my harsh words at the tavern.”

“At Granny’s?” Emma asked, confused. Hook nodded, tutting at her for not understanding. Emma gave him an apologetic smile, along with his flask. “Don’t be sorry for saying something you meant.”

Hook sighed. “Swan, I made one right choice with Cora but that no more makes me a hero than making one wrong choice would make you a villain.” Emma nodded.

“I know that. It just meant you were on your way. Every story starts with one choice.” Hook’s withering look made Emma reconsider what she had said. She realised she sounded exactly like her parents. Perhaps they were rubbing off on her, or perhaps it was in her blood.

Hook took a big glug from his flask. “Not everybody wants to be a hero, darling.”

“Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.”

Hook’s eyes turned bitter. “Did you not hear me up the beanstalk, lass? I am the worst human of them all.”

Emma snorted. “I refuse to believe that.”

Hook did not share her amusement. “I’ve done some terrible things in the name of revenge, love.” There was regret in his voice. “Once you think you can have revenge for one thing,” he explained, “You want it for every infraction, even just for a man insulting you or pushing past you briskly in town.”

Smiling, Emma said, “Just by saying that you’re on the way to being a good person - a hero.”

It was Hook’s turn to laugh. “I’ve not been a good person in 300 years.”

That was a long time but Emma had to smile. “Then it’s about time you started.”


	6. Chapter 6

The shawl was rough and poorly sewn. Milah had never been one for womanly arts like sewing or cooking. The material was cheap too, because she had been poor before she ran away to be with Killian, because of her cowardly husband who could not earn enough money to give her the life she needed. Milah loved beautiful things. This shawl was not beautiful.

Sighing, Killian hung it over the small fire stick that he had procured from the shop in town. It was a very simple device. With one click, it caused fire to spurt out of the end, like magic. Killian briefly wondered whether it was, indeed, magic. This world had all sorts of things that made Killian doubt that it was truly a land without magic. For example, they had boxes with small people inside, telling stories, and you could even play games on some of them. He had played one such with Swan’s family just a few nights ago, and had watched lots of things on the magical box since, using all of Swan’s recommendations.

And he had finally pulled himself together that morning and organised with Smee the plan ahead. He’d formed a plan a few days ago but he’d been soft and stayed with Swan just a few extra days. It was pleasant to be in the environment of a family. Killian had never lived in such. It was a very welcome experience.

But here he was: doing what needed to be done. Rumplestiltskin was trying to leave town and Killian just could not let that happen. What would he do if the man left town and Killian could not follow him? No, it had to be done in Storybrooke. There were less risks here and Killian knew that he could count on Swan to fix him up if he were too badly hurt. He also thought she’d do her best to keep him out of the brig but, if he was put in this world’s brig, it appeared that it was in Emma’s place of work, so he would be able to watch her, something his brain was protesting his enjoyment of doing.

Smee had found the shawl in the crocodile’s shop, just as Killian knew he had. All Killian had had to do was organise a distraction, in the form of the little librarian that the crocodile was so fond of, the pretty girl with a funny accent. The same one from before: Belle. Killian knew that she was the crocodile’s weakness and was only too happy to exploit it. She ought to know what she was in for anyway.

The shawl burned slowly. It was quite satisfying to watch and Killian held it as he walked above deck. He could hardly drop the burning rag onto his wooden ship. It was a marvel, a beauty, but he doubted it would stand up against fire. The sea and waves came into sigh as he went above deck. Sighing at the sight, he marvelled at the thought that he had been so successful. It had been a long time since a plan had gone so right.

He was just thinking that when, ready to throw the final part of the burning shawl onto the port, where it would finish burning, he heard a voice behind him. He threw the rag without thinking, watching as it reached the port and shrivelled up in a satisfying manner. He felt a small twinge of guilt. The shawl had been made by Milah. It was all that was left of her on the earth and now it was gone.

Shaking himself, Hook focussed on the voice and quickly found who it belonged to: Belle. “What are you doing here, lass?” he said. He had no true quarrel with the girl, though he believed her stupid for spending so much time with the crocodile. With him, people only got bitten. Look at Milah and Baelfire.

“Why would you burn that?” she shouted angrily. Even from a few steps away, Killian could see that there were tears in her eyes. She truly believed that the crocodile was a good man. Pity filled Killian’s stomach.

“Have you not given up on that monster yet?” Killian demanded.

Belle’s lip curled, marring her pretty face. “He’s changed,” she said, making Killian dramatically roll his eyes. “You have just destroyed his last chance of getting his son back!”

Killian growled. “That crocodile does not deserve to have his son back.” Baelfire was a touchy subject with Killian, drawing memories out of him that he had long tried to forget. “He doesn’t deserve any happiness. Do you even know what he did?” Belle was looking between him and the shawl on the port, now just a pile of ashes. “He killed her. He killed Milah.”

Belle’s distraction suddenly disappeared and she turned her eyes on him, wide and mistrusting. “He found us, a few years after we left,” Killian explained, his voice as angry as it was every time he told this story. “He found us and he forced me to watch as he killed her and then took my hand.”

Belle’s bottom lip trembled. She didn’t say anything as she backed away slowly and eventually turned around and stepped down off the ship, leaving Killian alone, watching the pile of ashes smoulder on the port, thinking of Milah and the life they had led.

There was a creak in the floorboard, the only sign Killian should have paid attention to before he was on the ground, a throbbing pain in his head. Cursing, he turned over, fumbling for the sword at his belt. The crocodile.

Rumplestiltskin stood in front of him, his face burning with anger, his eyes dark. Killian backed up as far as he could, not running but giving himself enough time to get himself a weapon. The crocodile didn’t give him the opportunity. The cane that he walked with continued to rain its blows down on Killian, his torso, legs and face screaming with the pain.

He was shouting, too, hoarsely. Killian could hardly understand, trying as he was to protect himself. Suddenly, despite all he had tried to do over the years, despite saying that he was willing to die so that he could be with Milah again, suddenly, he didn’t want to die.

Wrenching the sword out from his belt, he thrust it upwards, hardly even scratching the monster before it was knocked out of his hands. It bounced, once, twice, three times, to the other side of the deck. Killian closed his eyes. He had a dagger in his boot but there was no way he could get it. His chance was gone.

He was going to die.

“RUMPLE!” he heard screamed. 

The monster paused momentarily, giving Killian the second to inhale deeply, before continuing with his vicious attack. Killian curled into a ball so that he couldn’t see, to protect his face. He heard the approach of heeled shoes, even through the sound of a wooden cane making constant impact on his back and legs. He knew it was Belle without looking.

“Stop, Rumple,” she pleaded.

“Yes, please stop,” Killian said, his mouth filled with blood. He spat up at the crocodile. If he was going to die at his hands, he would not make it enjoyable for him. The crocodile sneered before bringing the cane back down.

“Don’t you see, Belle?” he said through gritted teeth. “He just has to die.”

Killian’s heart pounded in his chest. He was only glad that it still worked. 

“No, Rumple!” the girl still tried. It was almost sweet how she believed in him. “This is what he wants!”

“I assure you, lass, it’s not,” Killian called out to her through the pain. She ignored him.

“He wants to destroy all the good in you,” she said. Her accent really was interesting. Killian thought he might have visited a kingdom where they spoke with a tongue like that. It was easier to think of travels and the sea than of death, particularly a death that would bring him close to Liam again.

Over the years, Killian had thought much on how ashamed his brother would be by his actions.

“He destroyed Bae’s shawl,” the crocodile spat. Killian saw tears in the man’s eyes. He sneered.

“We’ll find another way, Rumple.”

A pause. A sigh. Killian dared to look up. He found Belle extending her hand to the crocodile and the crocodile took it, putting his cane back down to the floor, where it would help the cripple walk. Killian watched them leave, tears in his eyes as his body tried to remain awake.

XXX

Emma was at work when she got the call, halfway through a pack of three donuts that her father had brought her. The number was unknown. Emma furrowed her brow. “Hello,” she said, swallowing the rest of the sweet pastry.

“Sheriff Swan,” the voice said in relief. Emma did not recognise the voice.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“It’s Callum McKairdy, from the docks, sheriff,” he said. Emma did not recognise the name but she hummed to tell him to continue. “There’s a man here, asking for you. He’s badly beaten, sheriff.”

Emma froze. “Who is it?”

“He says his name is Killian.” Emma’s stomach stirred, the unrest making bile rise in her throat. She shook her head. “I think it’s Captain Hook.”

Emma dropped her phone and rushed out of the room.

XXX

She reached him quickly, driving far faster than she was permitted to, her heart racing in her chest. She cursed herself for not calling an ambulance every second, cursed herself for leaving her phone behind. Hopefully the dock worker who called would help her get him into the car. She wondered if he was even conscious. What did badly beaten even mean?

Hook lay on the ground, arms twisted oddly. His eyes were closed and she feared the worst until she approached and they flickered open. “Hey, beautiful,” he said and she could hear the pain in his voice, hoarse and stilted.

“What the hell?” she cursed, unsure how to express herself except in anger. She had seen him only that morning and now he was in such a state as she couldn’t describe, covered in red marks, blood dripping from various places. Nausea filled her. She shook her head. “Hook, we’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

The dockworker did help, thankfully, and Emma shouted her thanks back at him as she jumped into her car, Hook in the passenger seat. Memories of their last time together in this car rushed back at her, making her smile despite herself. This time was far different.

Hook had finally passed out, possibly now that he felt safe enough to. He knew he was going to be okay now. Emma hoped he would be okay but there was a great risk that he was bleeding internally. The thought made nausea bubble back up under her skin. She wished that she had her phone to call her parents. She wasn’t sure she could do this alone.

Abandoning her car haphazard at the front of the hospital, Emma screamed for help, for a gurney to take Hook inside. She could not support him alone. Nobody came, so she started rushing for the door, ready to drag two people out to help her. She’d barely reached the door when they came, holding a gurney. Hand on her heart, she pointed to where he was, breath coming rapidly.

Somehow he looked even worse on the stretcher as they took him inside. She had to blink back shocked tears. They asked her for a name and she whispered, “Killian.”

Tuning out their desperate pleas for him to answer, she turned in a circle, back to her car. It was in the way of other drivers or it would be next time one drove by. She could feel her heart beating in her chest, slowing down. The world seemed to be moving too quickly, her mind was whirring with feelings, with regrets. There were too many people around her and yet nobody close enough, nobody that she wanted. She wanted to call her mom and dad, Henry. She wanted to find who had done this and do the same to them. She wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide from everything, from punishing the assaulter, from every feeling she had for the pirate, from her job, from being at the hospital. 

Irrationally, she thought of the donut that remained on her desk. She wondered if her father would eat it.

She inhaled deeply and turned at the sound of her title being called. “Sheriff?”

“Mm?” she said distractedly, staring at the sign for the hospital, reading each letter one after one.

“Sheriff?” the person repeated. Emma’s eyes focussed. She raised her eyebrows at the nurse. “Sheriff, your partner is in surgery now.”

How long had she been out here for? Emma nodded slowly. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking halfway through. She cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere I can wait?”

XXX

When they let her see him, they called her his girlfriend again. She walked in and the nurse announced her, as though they were at a ball. She said, “Mister Jones, your girlfriend is here.” They’d called him her partner on the way in. Emma hadn’t refuted it, too distracted by the awful condition she had found her - friend in.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said and he did still sound in pain but less so than earlier. It was a relief. There were all sorts of tubes hooked up to him and he was in a hospital gown. His eyes were heavy-lidded, one of them entirely covered in a darkening bruise. She was grateful that she could not see the rest of him. He was probably coated in bruises and cuts.

She cleared her throat. “How are you?” she asked nonchalantly.

Hook smirked at her. “I’m not doing so well, Swan,” he told her before raising his eyebrows. “I’ve an idea of how you can make me feel better.”

Emma had lots of ideas. Emma’s mind had been on overdrive since their encounter in her car and her dreams - both sleeping and during the day - had been entirely focussed on this man and the way she had felt with him beneath her. She cleared her throat again.

“I’m sure you do.” They met eyes for a moment, until he broke 

“You can go if you like, lass,” he said. Emma furrowed her brow. This was the first time she had heard such a morose tone coming from Hook. She didn’t like to think of him lacking in confidence.

“I want to stay,” she said, moving from the end of his bed to the seat next to him. He gave her a smile, just the edges of his mouth upturning.

“I destroyed Rumplestiltskin’s shawl, the one he needed to go and find his son,” Hook said, his voice hoarse. Emma raised her eyebrows. She had assumed that Rumplestiltskin had something to do with this but had not known any of the details. She had not even known that Rumplestiltskin was even trying to leave the town. Emma didn’t know what to say. Hook spoke before she could try, “Milah made it.”

His voice was raw. Emma could hear every ounce of pain. Perhaps him asking her to leave had had less to do with her and more to do with the way he was feeling.

“I prioritised my revenge over Milah.” Emma met his eyes. They were tormented, the blue flashing grey. “I had to watch while the crocodile walked away with his happiness.” He shook his head. “It’s not fucking fair.”

Emma closed her eyes and then opened them. “I’m sorry.”

He gave her half a smile. “Thank you.” He rolled his head back to lean on the wall behind him. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“You need to figure out what’s important to you,” Emma told him earnestly. “You could- you could start a great life in this town.”

Hook looked down at his lap and then up at her, his piercing stare meeting hers. He tore his gaze away again and looked at the opposite wall. “Alone?” he commented.

Emma shook her head, her heartbeat increasingly rapid. “No. Not alone.”

XXX

The nurses kicked Emma out eventually, after she had entertained Hook with the ridiculous stories in the old magazines in his room. He had been laughing before she left, for which she was glad. Seeing him sad was disconcerting. It didn’t fit with the image she had of the pirate.

Her heart had felt almost raw as she arrived back at the loft, unlocking the door, deep in thought. The conversation with Hook, while short, had laid his feelings out in front of her. He was clearly unsure about whether his revenge would satisfy him. Emma had been overly relieved to hear him doubting his plan.

She had yet to pin down her exact feelings for the man. She didn’t want to have any feelings for him. The last time she had felt deeply for somebody had been years ago, Neal. Since then, she’d not let herself fall for anybody. But her walls had been kicked down by Henry and then her parents and her protection wasn’t up anymore. She was sure that she could let herself fall very easily now. She might not even have a choice.

Teeth chewing into her lip, Emma did not hear the first two times Mary Margaret called her name. She looked up slowly, blinking away her thoughts. She tried to pull a smile onto her face but she knew that she had failed when she saw her mother frown. “Where have you been?” she asked with concern in her voice. “David found your phone at work. We were worried.”

Sure enough, David emerged from the kitchen, his face the picture of fatherly worry. Emma shrugged. “Hook was attacked. I had to get him to the hospital.” She saw her parents share a look and ignored it. She didn’t know how she felt at the moment and did not even want to consider their feelings on the matter.

Mary Margaret started to ask another question but Emma shook her head, cutting her off. “I’m going to bed.”

Hunger rumbled in her stomach but she would have to wait. She needed to sleep and look at this Hook situation with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Her bed was a welcome comfort, the blankets bringing her cold insides warmth. She lay on her side, staring straight ahead at her wardrobe, wishing she knew what to think. She’d barely been lying there ten minutes when she smelled cinnamon and chocolate.

Her mother appeared at her door with two mugs. Emma managed to drag up a smile. Mary Margaret perched on the end of Emma’s bed, passing her the mug. Emma turned so that she was facing her friend and sat up slightly so that she could drink without spilling.

“I won’t stay long, don’t worry,” Mary Margaret said with a knowing smile. Emma appreciated the way that her mother knew her. “I just wanted to tell you that nobody can control who they fall in love with. I never planned to fall in love with your father. It created a bigger mess than it solved.” Emma didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to deny anyway. With a smile, Mary Margaret stood up, sipping her chocolate. “You mustn’t put your walls back up, Emma. You may block out pain but you also block out happiness.”

With that ominous statement, her mother walked out, her steps quieting as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Emma sighed and took a big gulp of the drink. She didn’t know why her heart felt so low and she had no idea how to fix it.


	7. Chapter 7

Emma arrived at the hospital, a box in her phone, containing the phone that she had anxiously purchased for Hook earlier that day. There would never again be a situation where she received the news of his attack from another. Now, after teaching him how technology worked, she would be able to speak with him at any point, to receive or send news of attacks or danger. And to talk to him generally, to guide Hook through this world that he knew so little of.

She met the eyes of the man at the desk, receiving a nod of recognition. Even if she were not the sheriff of Storybrooke, he would know her from her daily visits during visiting hours, in which she spent teaching Hook card games of this world and learning others from him. The man did not even offer to guide her today. He knew that she knew her way well.

The room, however, was empty, the bed made and as though never having been slept in. She turned in confusion, swapping the box with the phone to the other hand. Hook’s coat no longer hung on the back of the door. She was just about to pull out her own phone when a nurse entered. “Can I help you?” she said. Emma did not recognise this nurse. She was not the one that Hook had been steadily flirting with for the past few days.

“The patient, who was here…” she said, trailing off as she again looked at the bed where Hook had been staying and recovering from his beating. His ribs could not be fixed yet. He must be in pain. Emma panicked suddenly, wondering whether Mister Gold had been here, had taken him, had killed him.

“The hot one?” the young nurse said, her eyes flashing. Emma batted away her irritation. “He left, Sheriff. This morning.”

“Left?” Emma repeated, anger rising like a burning sensation in her stomach. “He left?”

“Of his own accord, Sheriff,” the nurse confirmed. “We advised him that it was a poor decision.”

Emma nodded, stifling a sigh. Either this was some silly mistrust of hospitals, carried over from his roots in the Enchanted Forest, where Emma assumed that hospitals were of a lesser quality, or he was a silly stubborn man who wanted to irritate Emma and, possibly, avoid Rumplestiltskin. Emma imagined it was a bit of all of that.

She stomped out of the hospital, determined to find him before he got himself killed.

XXX

It took all day but she found him eventually, atop her roof. It was the last place she would have expected to find him and, were it not for Henry, she would never have looked there. But, after hours of searching, Henry had wandered out of his bedroom, away from his games console, and said that he’d seen Hook go upstairs earlier that day.

Now, on the roof, the door clicked shut behind her, she saw him, the back of him, and overcame with nerves. A bout of self-confidence had her wondering whether he had left the hospital so that she would stop visiting him, stop forcing into becoming the hero that he professed to not want to be.

She shook herself and approached. She was the sheriff and she had a duty of care to her people. “So, pirate, did you not like the surroundings? Too much care, too little rum,” she said as she sat down beside him. She heard his tears immediately, smelled the alcohol emanating from him. Even so, she said nothing more, glancing at him. A bottle of rum lay, empty and discarded, in front of him and, at his other side, Emma noticed with a lurch of her heart, a gun. She wondered briefly if he even knew how to use it. Unease stirred inside her, creating a plan to take the gun from him. She didn’t trust him enough, not with such potential death in his hands.

“You ruined me, Swan,” he said, his voice hoarse. Emma’s head snapped around, away from the gun, to look him in the eyes, but he did not look at her. “I can’t do it anymore, any of it.”

“What- what do you mean?”

“You ruined me,” he said emphatically. He looked at her now. His eyes were dark, thunderous, but with pain and not anger. She could see it in the creases of his face, in the parting of his lips.

Emma blinked away her own tears. “I’m here.”

“I can’t do any of it anymore, Swan,” he said, kicking the empty bottle of rum.

“I’m going to be here,” she continued, “every step of the way.”

He chuckled. “On the way to what?”

“You’re going to be a hero,” she told him, laughing herself. He laughed but it was not dark, not bitter. He was smiling. “You have to believe me.”

He leaned back against his hands, looking out into Storybrooke. “I‘m drunk.”

“I know.”

Emma jumped up and Hook’s eyes followed her up slowly, his face creasing with confusion. She offered him her hand and he pulled, standing up beside her, stumbling as he did. He was close to her, his breath stinking of rum, brushing across her face. She looked into his eyes, her eyelashes fluttering.

Before Emma could say anything, Hook broke the eye contact, dragging away his blue eyes, bleary with drunkenness. “Look, Swan,” he murmured, his voice still close but not as it had been. Emma’s heart sped up. “Swan,” he pressed. Emma nodded, following his eyeline. She blinked at what she saw. A car, coming from out of town. “I thought you said people couldn’t come into this town.”

Emma swallowed. “They can’t.”

XXX

Hook’s steady breathing was a calming pressure on her as she descended the stairs, back to where her parents were, eyes wide and disapproving as she joined them again. “What is going on?” Mary Margaret hissed. Emma sighed, heading into the kitchen to pour herself a dram of rum, from the bottle that she and Hook had hidden a few days before his arrest. She drank it in one go and then repeated the process, this time cradling the glass in her hands and walking with it back into the living room, soft-footed, so as not to wake the sleeping pirate.

Emma sat down on the couch, wishing she wasn’t wearing such unyielding jeans. She would have to get changed before she went to sleep, on the couch, now that she had a pirate occupying her own bed. “Hook and I saw a car drive into town.” It was clearly not what her mother was expecting to hear. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, drawing back and then following Emma over to the couch area, David swiftly joining them.

“Drive into town? You’re sure?” David questioned. “Cars aren’t supposed to-”

Emma shook her head. “I’m sure.”

“Nobody should be able to find the town,” Mary Margaret said, biting her bottom lip. David lay his hand on her knee. “And, with the curse broken and Cora running around, this is the worst time for somebody to be able to find us.” Emma nodded her agreement.

They were all silent for a moment, weighing the possibilities of what this could mean. Emma knew that David and Mary Margaret wanted to know why Hook had stumbled in drunk. She had hoped that they would not be sitting in the living room, but they had been, so she had had to attempt to get him past them without them realising how drunk he was, something that had turned out to be a spectacular failure. His stumbling aside, Hook stunk of alcohol. Emma would have to wash her bedding tomorrow.

“I want to go back to the Enchanted Forest,” burst from her mother so suddenly that Emma’s head shot up, her eyes wide and her lips parted. It was such a change of subject that Emma was thrown entirely off guard. She had no idea what to say. She had never even thought of it as a possibility to return to that world, of magic and of no indoor plumbing or electricity or coffee makers or-

“We have a great life here,” Emma stated firmly, glancing at David. From the guilt behind his eyes, she realised that they had discussed this before. Her heart tugged, reminding her that they had left her once before. Burrowing insecurities suggested that they would do so again if she said no.

“We could have a great life in the Enchanted Forest,” Mary Margaret continued, her eyes alight with the possibility. Emma’s heart yearned for her friend, the one she could have spoken to about her feelings for Hook, about the mess that her heart was at the moment. “We could reclaim our land, together, and be happy, together.”

It was too much for Emma. She stood up, drank her rum down in one and slammed the glass onto the coffee table. Spinning around, she stormed upstairs, forgetting that Hook was there before slamming the door that they had had installed when she moved in, to allow for some semblance of privacy. Emma wondered if she would have more or less privacy in a great palace, with all its rooms and all its courtiers.

“Is there trouble in paradise?” a slurred voice asked. Emma leaned back against the door, pressing her head into it and chuckling with a shake of her head.

“Piss off,” was her breathless response. She could hardly believe the way her day had gone.

“You should go back to the Enchanted Forest.”

Emma peeled herself away from the door, in order to look into Hook’s hazy eyes. He mustn’t have slept for long at all. She had hardly been downstairs ten minutes and he had only been sleeping for twenty before that. “You shouldn’t be eavesdropping,” she admonished.

He shrugged, sitting up in bed. Emma blinked upon seeing that he was topless. She certainly hadn’t stripped him of his leather vest. Her eyes found it quickly, on the floor. She supposed that sleeping in leather must not be comfortable. “You put me here,” he reminded her. Emma nodded distractedly, her eyes tracing the top of his chest with interest. Part of her hoped he was not fully naked. A smaller, but more insistent part hoped that he wore nothing under the cover.

Emma cleared her throat, blinking. Her fatigue was taking over but she could not go back downstairs, not when her storming out had been so emphatic. Returning would be to invite the conversation to continue and she didn’t want that. “I should…” she started before trailing off. She didn’t know what she should do.

“Get into bed with me,” Hook suggested, raising a corner of her duvet. Emma smiled at the offer. 

“It is my bed,” she said, raising her brows. Hook smirked, burrowing down further into her mattress.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he promised drunkenly. Emma snorted.

“I’m not sure you’re up to much.”

Hook scoffed, raising his eyebrows. “Dirty-minded lass. I promise only to cuddle you into a slumber.” Emma laughed.

“I need to change,” she said, not sure if she was agreeing or not.

“Feel free,” he said, keen eyes upon her. Emma felt her face colour and turned to her wardrobe, pulling a set of pyjamas out. She wished that she had a bathroom, as she hid herself behind her wardrobe door. She felt sure that he was able to see her but she could not go downstairs and face her parents’ questioning.

When changed and flushed red, she approached the bed, biting a lip. It was the only option, with her pride too high to return to the living room. She nodded as if to give herself confidence. “Come on, Swan,” he encouraged.

She slipped into her sheets, warm and smelling of rum. She supposed it was not quite as bad as she thought. Maybe she would not wash her bedding for a few days. Hook’s arms wrapping around her was not an unwelcome feeling. In fact, it made her feel warm and comforted. She burrowed her head into his chest, enjoying the feel of his bare chest. She looked up into his eyes and found them black with lust. She wondered if hers were the same.

“At least think about going home, lass,” he said, stroking her side. Emma nodded, mainly to end the conversation. She didn’t want to think about the Enchanted Forest, least of all to think about it as her home. She wanted to enjoy one night of indulgence, of lying beside Hook, in very little clothing. She didn’t like to think of the way that her mind would use this in her dreamland. She smiled up at Hook and he gave her a drunken smile in return. Emma laughed, pulling out of her embrace. He pouted.

“I can’t sleep like that,” she said defensively. Hook rolled his eyes and placed his good hand on her stomach. “What are you doing?” A tremor crept into her voice.

“Want to feel you next to me,” he said as his eyes drifted shut. Emma swallowed. She understood the feeling. She lay her hand on top of his, lacing her fingers through his. “Night, Swan.”

“Night, Hook,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling and longing for sleep.

XXX

Emma stumbled down stairs the next morning, leaving Hook sleeping off what was likely going to be a terrible hangover. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had skipped dinner the night before. She wanted a large breakfast, the breakfast of champions, though she did not feel much like a champion. She remembered what Mary Margaret had said last night and the discomfort it had created in her chest, the fear of them leaving without her. She only hoped that they did not mention it over breakfast.

They didn’t. In fact, as Emma sat down with a huge bowl of cereal and a coffee her father had prepared for her, they said nothing at all. Feeling the awkwardness rising in the room, she looked up, at first Mary Margaret and then David. Neither would meet her eye. Emma narrowed hers. “What?” she said, tucking into her cereal with the gusto of a person not having eaten for over eighteen hours.

David cleared his throat, standing up from the table and going to wash his mug. Emma’s eyes followed him. She glanced at her mother, who was studying her porridge intently. “What?” Emma repeated.

Mary Margaret looked up finally, eyebrows raised and a forced smile on her face. Emma felt a sinking feeling in her chest. “What’s going on with Hook?” she burst, her smile not falling. Emma tore her eyes away from it, feeling rather creeped out. She looked at David and he averted his eyes immediately. She realised that they had read into her staying with him last night more than they should have.

Mary Margaret continued in a rush of words, “Only because David saw you in your car-” a rush of heat flooded Emma’s face at the memory of David’s face at the window “- and I was only bringing you a coffee this morning so that I could apologise for last night and I forgot that he would be up there and you were- you were very cozy.” Her mother’s eyes went back to her porridge, flicking up at Emma sporadically.

Emma blinked, wondering how cozy she had been with Hook. She only remembered waking with his hand still in hers, but perhaps they had been closer during the night. Or perhaps holding hands was cozy enough for her mother. She supposed that, coupled with the straddling incident in her car, it would be. “There’s nothing going on,” Emma stuttered.

“Don’t lie, Emma,” Mary Margaret said softly. Emma stood, pushing her half-empty bowl of cereal away. “We might not approve but it’s your life.”

A cloud fell over Emma’s brain. “You might not approve?” she repeated, aghast. “I don’t need your approval, even if I was sleeping with Hook, which I am not!”

Hook chose that moment to stumble into the kitchen, topless and yawning. “What’s all the shouting about, love?” He did not help her case but Emma saw none of the amusement in the situation. Grabbing her coffee and latching onto her fury, she turned and stomped out of the room, tugging Hook behind her.


	8. Chapter 8

“What is the problem, Swan?” Hook asked, lounging back on Emma’s bed. Emma gave him a look but said nothing, stomping off to her wardrobe. She pulled open the doors, enjoying the satisfying sound of the handle hitting the wall. Her clothes irritated her. She didn’t have the patience to choose something. And, even if she did, she would have to get changed in front of Hook again. 

Before she could consider what she really thought about anything, she felt Hook’s hand on her arm. She looked at it in annoyance and, then, when he didn’t let go, looked him in the eyes. His blue eyes were wide and insistent. She shook off his hand. “What is the issue, love?” His voice was soft but it begged no arguments.

Emma sighed and closed the wardrobe doors, leaning her head against one of them and chuckling weakly. “My parents don’t approve of us sharing a bed.” Hook’s laugh brought Emma’s hackles up. She whipped her head around to look at him, glaring fiercely. His smirk only grew into a full smile.

“I never thought of you as somebody that would allow others to tell her what she should do,” Hook said with a raise of his eyebrows. Emma pursed her lips.

“It’s more complicated than that. They’re my parents.”

“Yes, you mentioned,” Hook said. He said nothing more. Emma pulled away from the wardrobe and sank down onto her bed. Next door, she thought she could hear Henry stirring from his bed. She felt a stirring in her chest to tell Hook the whole story. It was what Henry would tell her to do.

Pulling her legs into a crossed shape, she sighed and patted the bed beside her. “You’d best sit down. It’s a long story. I hope you’re a good listener.”

He was a good listener. He did not interrupt her once while she explained it all from the beginning: the wardrobe, the system, foster families, Neal. She saw anger swell on his face at the idea of this man leaving her in jail, pregnant and alone. She told him about being handcuffed to a bed while she gave birth and then skipped a few years, to when that same baby she gave away came back to her, found her and gave her a life, as she had given him life ten years before. She didn’t give him all the details after that. In the few months that she had been in Storybrooke, so much had happened that Emma did not have the time to explain it all. She gave him the key facts: her parents, Regina and breaking the curse.

“And then you met me,” he said after she had been silent for a few beats. Emma snorted.

“Something like that, yes.”

“It is strange,” Hook said, inclining his head. “The parents’ thing.”

Emma nodded. “It’s- I never got to have real parents so I want to let them be my parents, but, at the same time, I’m 28 years old and I have to live my own life.”

Hook shrugged. “Then, live it. Let your parents be annoyed at you for making your own mistakes. From what I’ve heard, lass, that’s a rite of childhood.” Emma laughed, her lips spreading into a smile. It was a nicer idea than worrying about their opinion of her. She’d been so full of worries that it was a very pleasant feeling to consider not having them. And, even when Hook’s arms encircled her waist and he rested his head against hers, she did not worry about what that meant, what she felt. Hook was right. She should just live her life.

She leaned her head against his shoulder. There was still a strong smell of alcohol on him. Chuckling, she pulled away and looked him in the eyes. He had an intense look in them, as though he were studying her. “And you?” Emma asked. He tilted his head. “Are you a mistake?”

It was a quiet question and Emma watched confusion mix with hurt in his eyes. She didn’t retract her question. “That’s a decision you’re going to have to make for yourself, Swan,” he replied, his mouth a straight line. Emma nodded and leaned her head back on his shoulder. He tightened his arms around her.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked a few moments later, her voice against his neck. She felt his skin reverberate as he laughed, assuring her that he had heard her question.

“I’m hungry,” he replied. Emma snorted. She tore herself away from his warmth and looked him in the eyes.

“You know that’s not what I meant, Hook.”

Amusement faded in his eyes. He nodded. “I know.” He opened his mouth and then closed it, shaking his head. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

“Okay,” Emma agreed. She wouldn’t push him. “Shall I make us some breakfast?”

Hook’s smirk returned. He waggled his brows. “It’s been a while since a girl I spent the night with offered to make me breakfast.”

Emma laughed, standing up, raising her eyebrows. She pointed at him. “And that’s all I’m offering.”

His face softened, something Emma couldn’t place in his eyes. “I will take all you offer me, Swan.”

Emma’s chest fluttered and she looked away. Opening the door to the small landing before the stairs, she flicked her head at Hook, summoning him.

XXX

Swan’s lad was clearly confused by Killian’s presence at the dinner table. Swan’s parents weren’t there and Henry informed them that they had gone to Granny’s for lunch. More time had passed than Killian realised. The sun was high in the sky. Emma’s story had taken some time to tell but Killian was glad to have listened.

“That looks smashing, Swan,” Killian said as Emma placed the plated breakfast in front of him. She smiled at him as she sat down with her own. The last time Killian had such a breakfast was a long time ago. There were sausages and eggs and bacon, everything Killian could have requested. Henry watched their plates with envy in his eyes, his cold sandwich surely not matching up to the glory of their breakfast.

“So, you’re back,” Henry said, looking at Killian. Killian smiled.

“Aye, lad,” he replied. “Things are back in place.”

Emma cleared her throat. “His ribs are still broken though, Henry.”

“Yes, your mother is looking after me,” Killian said, winking at Swan who scowled. Henry shot his mother a funny look that made Killian need to suppress a smile. The lad knew as well as Killian that Swan was not the most caring type, not in the traditional way at any rate. Her bedside manner certainly needed some work.

“What was it like? What sort of car hit you?”

Killian turned a blank face to Henry’s questions. He knew what a car was. He’d been inside a car - when Emma had clambered onto his lap and done such terrible things with her hips that Killian had truly been about to embarrass himself, before her father arrived and things cooled considerably within the car. But he had never been hit with one of them. He considered for a moment whether the cars had fists. It was an amusing image, a fist coming out of one of the blinding lights on the front.

His bemused smile earned him a kick under the table from Emma. “It was a land rover,” Emma said. Killian watched her dumbly. “The car that hit you, Hook, it was a land rover. That was how you got your injuries.” Killian nodded slowly, assuming that Emma’s wide eyes and gritted teeth were done to make him agree to what she was saying. She had clearly not told the lad about Rumplestiltskin’s attack. Killian understood that, to an extent.

“Yes, the car- hit me.”

Henry gave him a funny look but he continued with his questioning, as Killian tucked further into his magnificent breakfast. “Is your real name Hook? Is it your surname?”

Killian choked out a laugh. “No, lad, it’s just because of this,” he said, shaking his second favourite appendage at the lad. Henry’s eyes widened with joy, the silver of the hook glinting with the sun streaming in through the window.

“What is your real name?” he asked curiously.

“Killian. Killian Jones.”

“Hmm,” Henry said, consideringly. “Is that Irish?”

Emma snorted. “No, Henry, you know he’s from the Enchanted Forest.” Henry shrugged.

“You never know, Mom. He could have gone back and forth. He does have a bit of an accent and he likes alcohol.” Emma’s laugh drew Hook’s attention and, from the guilty look that followed, he assumed that she was laughing at him, rather than with him. He furrowed his brow at her. “Did you give him the phone? Can he use it with his hook?”

These questions were directed at Emma and, rather than reply, she jumped up and took a bag from the kitchen counter and handed it to Killian. Intrigued, he dove in and found a small box, covered in a funny thing material. He broke that with his hook and tore it off efficiently. He looked up to find Emma blushing and wondered what she had given him. He glanced at her lad who grinned and nodded encouragingly.

Killian tore one half of the box apart from the other and found an odd black rectangular shape. “It’s a phone,” Emma said, reaching to take his gift away from him. “I’m going to teach you to use it, so that you can call me if you need me.” Killian quirked a brow at her suggestively and was gratified when her blush deepened. “If there’s an emergency,” she amended.

Killian could think of lots of emergencies that would require Swan’s presence, lots of things that he should not be thinking about while her son was at the table with them. He returned to his breakfast. “So, even if we’re not together, I’ll be able to talk to you?” Killian clarified. Swan nodded.

“Whenever you want.” Killian beamed. When he looked away, he found Henry looking between them oddly.

“Where did you say you stayed last night, Killian?” Henry asked. It was pleasant to hear the lad call him by his true name, even if his question was rather personal and made Emma’s face flush like a berry. Killian smirked.

“Do you want me to come with you to the stables today, Henry?” Emma asked, her voice falsely buoyant. Henry’s eyes flashed with excitement.

“Yes, yes,” he enthused and then looked at Killian. “Killian, will you come with us?”

Killian looked between Henry’s excitement and Emma’s blush and furrowed his brow. “Do you want to come with us?” Emma asked quietly. Killian shrugged and nodded.

“Why not?”

XXX

At the stables, Emma was impressed to see Henry look after his pony, Pixie. He was not allowed to ride it until David said so and he was dealing with waiting very well. He went to the stables every day to look after the horse, diligently keeping the stable clean and the horse in good condition.

“He’s very good, isn’t he?” Hook said quietly, his mouth close to her ear. They were sitting on the bench in the stable, observing Henry while chatting. The jobs he had to do took about two hours and it was not the first time that Emma had come with him. Usually, she brought a book or downloaded something on her phone to watch. This time, she had brought Hook to keep her occupied.

“Hmm,” Emma agreed, watching her son work. Every so often, he shot them a smile and Emma knew that he appreciated the fact that they were there, even if he was too focussed on Pixie to hold a conversation.

“I don’t know what to do, Swan, to answer your earlier question.” Emma stiffened, glancing at Henry. Their voices were low and he appeared not to be able to hear them.

“I know,” she murmured, looking into his eyes. “You can be a part of something here, with us.” Emma didn’t know what she was asking him to be, what part he could be, but she knew with growing certainty that there was a place for him in her life, in their family, and a big part of her knew what place that was.

“I haven’t been a part of anything for years.” Emma had felt the same, before she became part of Mary Margaret’s life and Henry’s too. It had been more important to her than she had ever imagined, that sense of belonging. She wanted to give that to Hook too. “Even when I had a crew-” he cut himself off with a shake of his head. “I’ve been on my own since Milah was murdered, in my mind if not in my body.”

Emma gave him a sad smile. “It feels-” Hook groaned quietly, tipping his head back to rest on the wall. “It feels like I’m betraying her, by not avenging her.”

“Would she have wanted this, then?” Emma murmured. “Would she have wanted you to spend so many years, caught up in revenge?”

Hook took his hip flask of rum out of his pocket, offered it to Emma, who refused, and swigged at himself. “I don’t know.” Hook drank again and then replaced the flask. “I’m so tired and so far from the man- the man I was once.”

“Who do you want to be?”

There was a pause, a short silence.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s what you have to figure out.”

Hook gave her a piercing look. “Who do you want to be?”

Emma laughed, a bitter sound that she hated. “I stopped having a choice when I broke the curse.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“I sound like you,” Hook corrected. “You told me that. I thought there wasn’t always a choice. I thought it was a stupid thing to say too, but there is, Swan. There is always a choice.”

Emma stilled, looking into his severe blue eyes. His mouth was a line. He wasn’t joking or teasing. Emma swallowed. “We should figure it out together,” she suggested, a bit hoarsely.

Hook didn’t say anything. He didn’t take his eyes from hers as he reached across to take her hand and squeeze it. Emma inhaled and exhaled and relaxed, suddenly consciously aware of the role that she wanted Hook to play in her life.


	9. Chapter 9

Mary Margaret entered the apartment to the sound of laughter. She arched her head back to look at her husband, who seemed as quizzical as she felt. They continued into the apartment, Mary Margaret’s lips turning upwards at the sound of her daughter giggling. In the kitchen, Mary Margaret was slightly surprised by the sight of Hook, though she immediately chastised herself for being so. When they had left the apartment that morning, Emma and Hook had been closeted up in Emma’s room. Of course he wouldn’t have left.

And a big part of Mary Margaret felt guilty for wanting him to have, because she had never heard Emma laugh so much, not even with Graham. Still, Mary Margaret was suspicious of Hook. He had been working with Cora and she was not sure why he had switched sides, or if he truly had.

“You’ve made dinner!” Mary Margaret said, pleased. She set the bag of groceries that she had been carrying down on the kitchen surface, watching as Emma pulled a tray of lasagne out of the oven.

“Yeah,” Emma said. She had a pleased, flushed look about her, even as she pretended to nonchalance. Hook was watching her fondly. Mary Margaret felt something funny in her stomach. “Henry and I were showing Hook how to use the kitchen appliances.”

“Where is Henry?” David asked, looking about the living room.

Emma smiled. “He’s calling his school friend. He’ll be down in a few minutes to eat. We made enough for you, if you want some.”

“That sounds great,” David said, his arm snaking around Mary Margaret’s waist and squeezing it.

Emma set the lasagne down in the middle of the table and Hook immediately followed her with the knives and forks. He also set spoons out, though they never ate with spoons. Mary Margaret supposed that Emma had taught him about all the cutlery. She didn’t imagine they used many manners on a pirate ship.

Mary Margaret took a seat, beside David and opposite Hook. He gave her an uneasy smile, as though he knew that he wasn’t welcome. Guilt burrowed in her stomach. Emma served the lasagne up and Mary Margaret watched with interest as Hook’s eyes never left her. Mary Margaret didn’t like to name the emotion she saw there.

When they all had some, and Emma had called twice for Henry to no avail, they sat down and began to dig in. “This is excellent, Emma,” Mary Margaret complimented.

“It was Hook, too,” Emma said, her eyes bright as she looked at the pirate, who arched one eyebrow at her, smirking.

“How very homey.”

Mary Margaret froze. She hadn’t even heard Rumple enter but she supposed that he had magic now. He could enter silently if he wished. Emma stood at the table immediately, placing herself slightly in front of Hook. Mary Margaret saw that he was not best pleased by Emma’s reaction.

“What do you want, Gold?” David asked, his voice laced with anger. They may not particularly have liked Hook, but what Rumple had done to him must not be allowed to happen to anybody under their protection, in their town.

“Oh, just a favour.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Hook growled. “It’s never just a favour with him.”

Mary Margaret watched Emma carefully. She knew what Emma had promised when she had saved Ashley’s baby when she had first come to Storybrooke. “Oh, Miss Swan knows that, I think.”

Mary Margaret watched Hook’s eyes turn suspiciously to Emma, who wore her guilt heavily on her face. “You made a deal with him?” Hook demanded.

“I-” she cut herself off and turned back to Gold. “What do you want, Gold?”

“Since Hook burnt my shawl, I find myself unable to leave this town,” he said, anger burning fiercely in his eyes. Mary Margaret understood Emma’s protective stance. “You will go to New York and find him, Miss Swan, and bring him here.”

“She won’t,” Hook cut in.

“I don’t believe you are Miss Swan, pirate,” Gold said, “nor do I think you speak for her. Emma owes me a favour and I’m cashing it in.”

Emma sighed. Mary Margaret watched her, stricken. “He’s right.”

“No, Emma,” David interrupted. “You need to stay here.”

Shaking her head, Emma said, “No. It’s fine. I won’t be long. It’s only New York and I do owe him a favour. It’s what I agreed to.” Mary Margaret watched fury burn on Hook’s face. “But,” she continued, turning to Gold again. “You will protect my family, from Cora, while she is gone.”

Gold narrowed his eyes. “Deal.” Emma nodded, satisfied. “But that does not include the pirate.”

Emma’s smirk was not expected. “Don’t worry about him. He’s coming with me.”

XXX

Rumple left and Emma ascended the stairs to pack. “What is going on, Swan?” Killian demanded, following her up the stairs.

“I want you where I can keep an eye on you,” Emma said, entering the room. Killian noticed that the bed hadn’t been made and Emma’s pyjamas were slung lazily on the floor. Killian shuffled forward to sort the bed covers.

“Would you miss me so much, Swan?” he asked, half-bent. Emma clucked her tongue and didn’t respond any more than that. She pulled an odd sort of trunk out of her wardrobe, the wheels on its bottom making a noise against the floor. Emma opened it up, placing it atop Killian’s nicely made bed. Killian tutted and Emma gave him an amused look.

She packed clothes into the case. “How long are we going for, Swan?” Killian asked incredulously. “Why would you need so many items of clothing?”

“It’s a couple of days on the road and then a couple of days back, not to mention however long it takes us to find that address in New York.”

“Is New York a fairly large place then?”

Emma gave him that look that she gave when he said something that anybody should know but which he did not. “You could say that.”

“Do I need some of these items of clothing?” Killian asked, using his hook to pull out an odd blue pair of trousers. It did not seem to be a very comfortable material. Emma smiled.

“I think David will lend you some.”

They made their way back downstairs a few moments later. It was dark outside. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Emma?” Emma’s mother asked as they entered the living room, taking their seats again at the table. The sort of pie they had made earlier - Emma had called it lasagne - was still sitting, begging to be eaten, on the table. And Killian was hungry. He sat down and began to eat, as Emma spoke with her mother.

“I can handle Hook, Mary Margaret,” Emma said, taking a seat beside Killian. The comment amused Killian. He rolled his eyes at her and she smiled, her eyes doing a nice bright thing, like a flash or a sparkle. “We’re going to leave tomorrow morning, first thing.”

“Are you not flying?” Mary Margaret said, furrowing her brow.

Emma shook her head. “No, it’s expensive. We’ll just drive. It’s not so far.”

“I suppose not,” Mary Margaret said uncertainly. Killian looked between the two of them. He wondered what driving so far entailed and then shrugged it off, returning to the pasta pie. He trusted Swan to look after him.

XXX

“I’m not happy about this, Emma,” David said quietly as Emma dug around in his chest of drawers, searching for things that would fit Hook. Emma looked up at him, blowing a piece of hair away from her face.

“David, I promise I will bring you the clothes back.”

“Not about that,” David said with a sigh. “I’ll buy new clothes. I don’t want them back. I mean about you going to New York with him. I don’t trust him.”

Emma stood up, three pairs of trousers in her hands. “I do, though. I understand that you’re protective of me. I don’t mind that. I-” Emma sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I always wanted a dad who was protective of me.” David’s face softened. “But I have nothing to fear from Hook. I trust him.”

“But he has a weapon attached to his body.”

Emma looked at David in amusement. “Come on, David. If that is your only complaint, then I think I’ll be fine. Ruby is a werewolf and we love her. Don’t judge people for what their bodies do.”

“I mean, he chose the hook and Ruby was born a werewolf,” David grumbled, “but I see your point and I trust you. I’m just- we don’t know him very well and you’re going to be somewhere where none of us can help you. What if Gold’s son is dodgy too and you’re left alone with these two men?”

“I can handle myself,” Emma promised. David sighed, slinging an arm around her shoulder. Emma smiled to herself, leaning into his half-embrace.

XXX

“Why can’t I come?” Henry pleaded. Emma sighed. He had been saying this since he had learned the previous night that Emma was going to New York to find Gold’s son. And she was taking Hook with her. This was the part that really bit him, Emma knew, because she could not claim that she needed to go on her own, because she was taking Hook.

But Emma knew that Hook was in the most danger in the town. Gold was going to protect Mary Margaret, David and Henry but he wouldn’t protect Hook. Rather, he would attack Hook or draw Cora and Regina in to do it. By now, Emma imagined that they had realised that Hook was not spying for them.

“I’m sorry, Henry, but you’ll be safer here.”

“With Cora running around trying to bring me to my mom- to Regina?” Henry questioned angrily. Emma could see the hurt in his eyes and felt guilt swell in her stomach.

“Henry, we don’t know what sort of a man Gold’s son is. I don’t want you to get hurt out there.” Henry looked down at the floor. “And, anyway, you’re needed here! Nobody notices things like you do. You brought magic back to this town. How can I take you away from it?”

“I know you’re lying,” Henry said accusingly and Emma sighed. “But I’ll forgive you, if you buy me a present.” Emma laughed and promised, pressing a kiss to his scruffy hair. “And, and,” he added eagerly, “if we go to New York some other time.”

“I promise!” Emma said laughingly. “Now, go, shoo, you’ll be late for school!”

Henry nodded, running out of the door and laughing. “Come on, Mary Margaret!”

Mary Margaret sighed and kissed Emma’s cheek once, hugging her. “Be safe, please, Emma.” Emma nodded.

“I will.”

“And, you,” Mary Margaret said, turning to Hook with what Emma imagined her mother thought were threatening eyes. Emma bit her lip to keep in her giggles. She found her father watching her reproachfully for laughing at her mother and realised that this was what it was like to have parents. “If you harm a hair on my daughter’s head, I will personally hang, draw and quarter you.”

And, with that, Mary Margaret spun on her heel and strode out of the apartment to go to school. Emma found Hook watching her with wide eyes. “She means it,” David added as he wandered over to the kitchen and pulled cereal out of the cupboard.

“I’m sure she does,” Hook said, his voice amused. Emma met his eyes and wanted to laugh. She looked away.

“Do you two want breakfast?” David asked.

Emma shook her head. “I’m going to show Hook the wonders of McDonalds.” Her father gave her a blank look and Emma groaned aloud. How had McDonalds never made its way into Storybrooke? “We’ve really got to break that curse keeping us all here and then I’ll take you and Mary Margaret.” Her father nodded with a smile. “Now, come on, Hook, take off your pirate coat. It’s too conspicuous.”

Hook grunted. “I don’t think it is necessarily just a pirate coat, lass. This was the height of fashion in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Maybe three hundred years ago,” David called from the kitchen. Hook scowled at him and Emma had to laugh.

“Off,” she ordered.

“I hope you’re this bossy with the rest of my clothes, Swan,” he said with a wink as he worked the coat off, leaving him in jeans and a t-shirt.

“I heard that!” David shouted. Emma flushed but ignored him.

“Better,” Emma commented, nodding at him. She passed him a hoodie she had filched from David and Hook looked at it suspiciously. “You put it on over your head.”

“How odd,” Hook said pleasantly, doing as Emma instructed. Finally, he looked like a normal person. His pirate boots were inconspicuous enough. He couldn’t borrow David’s shoes, because he wore bigger feet. Emma had made a joke - the joke - about big feet then but Hook didn’t know it and her parents gave her blank looks too. Apparently it wasn’t a well known joke in the Enchanted Forest. “Come on, Swan, shall we be off? I’m looking forward to discovering this metropolis. Henry tells me that your people holiday there.”

“Yes, my people do,” Emma replied, trying to keep her chuckles in. “Let’s go.”


	10. Chapter 10

“So, two entire days in your death machine, Swan?” Hook said. Emma turned her eyes towards him, only slightly. She was driving and she did not want to give Hook any more fear of her car than he already had. Despite his fear, he was sitting rather comfortably, his elbow resting on the frame of the open window, the air flowing through ruffling his hair. He looked like he was born in the Land Without Magic, rather than having been transplanted here. She smiled at him.

“We’ll have some breaks,” she promised, turning her eyes back to the road and changing gears. “It’ll be fun, like a road trip.”

Hook snorted, drawing a brief glance from Emma. “We have different ideas of fun, lass.” The one arched eyebrow made Emma flush lightly. She was very sure that their ideas of fun were quite similar. That thought made her blush deepen.

Shaking herself lightly, Emma asked, “What is your idea of fun then?” The question had hardly left her mouth when she snorted.

“What?” he asked, nonplussed. She turned to him quickly, to see whether his confusion was genuine. When she saw that it was, she laughed lightly.

“It’s just that it sounds like the sort of question you would ask on a first date.”

“And a date is...?”

Emma scoffed incredulously and turned to him again, finding, again, that his lack of understanding was truthful. With a furrow of her brows and a small laugh, she said, “It’s what two people do when they like each other. They go out, to a restaurant or to the movies, or wherever. That’s a date.”

Hook was silent for a moment. Emma turned her head towards him and he shook his head, as if shaking away his thoughts. “Could you and I go on one of these dates one day?” he asked. 

Emma allowed herself half a smile. “We’ll see.”

XXX

The hours wiled by at a pleasurable pace. Emma had loved driving since she had got her licence. It had given her the freedom she had yearned for since she was a child. The whole world was at her feet, with a car. So, she was perfectly happy to sit in silence and concentrate on the open road. Occasionally, Hook would ask what something was and they would speak for a while. He invariably made her laugh or blush or roll her eyes and then they would draw silent again, turning the radio up.

At about midday, they stopped at Hampton, New Hampshire, along the coast, at a country pub. Emma purchased two sandwiches with fries and paid, accepting Hook’s galleons without much protest. Granny accepted the galleons at her diner, so the supply was always handy, as they made Emma feel like she was spending monopoly money.

She found Hook at a table outside. The day was passably warm, with hardly a breeze, even at the coast. It made for a very pleasant lunch outside. Emma passed Hook his sandwich and he accepted it with a smile.

“So,” Hook asked after swallowing his first bite of sandwich. “Does this count as a date?”

Emma grinned, unable to help herself. She met his eyes, taunting and bright blue. “I guess so,” she agreed, briefly pondering when she had last been on a real date. It had been a long while.

Hook smirked, looking out at the sea. His eyes softened and Emma found herself lost in the way he watched the waves. Before she knew it, though, he had turned back to her with a curious look. “What do you like to do for fun, Swan?” Emma’s laugh bubbled out of her.

They sat at that table, eating and talking for over two hours. They finished their sandwiches rather quickly and then ordered a dessert platter to share, introducing Hook to various American specialties, some of which he denounced as far too sweet. Emma was only too pleased to have to eat those herself.

Finally, as the clock on Emma’s phone approached three in the afternoon, Emma sighed and said, “We should probably get going or we’ll be driving in the dark.” Emma didn’t necessarily mind driving in the dark, but daylight was preferable. Hook nodded, sipping his coke. It made that annoying sound that straws make in empty cups when drinkers try to get the end of them. Emma narrowed her eyes. “Come on,” she hurried, tutting.

Hook smirked, abandoning the food and following her. When they reached the car, a sudden burst of inspiration hit Emma and she had hardly considered it when she said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, “At the end of a date, you’re supposed to kiss.” She said it matter of factly, as though it was an irreproachable piece of information, as though she were teaching him about American culture.

“Is that right, love?” Hook said, smirking. Emma felt herself flush. His eyes were dark and unmoving from hers. She nodded slightly, leaning forward eagerly. He leaned in too and pressed a soft peck to her lips before pulling away.

Emma narrowed her eyes and snorted. “Is that the best that Captain Hook can do?” she challenged, feeling rather cheated. Hook chuckled. It wasn’t quite a dark sound but there was a sort of promise in it that made Emma’s skin tingle.

Before she knew it, he had backed her up to her car, the metal warm against her back, and covered her mouth with his. She wrapped her arms around his neck, crossing them at the elbow, in an attempt to pull him closer. This had been what she had been expecting. In some way, this had been what she had been expecting since he had first met her eyes, when she had ‘saved’ him from Cora’s attack, when she had had him tied up against a tree and threatened to set an ogre on him. This chemistry, this pull between them, had been building since then. And Emma was almost impressed that they had made it this far without succumbing to it.

His lips were soft but demanding. The bones of his hips dug into hers and his hand was tight against her waist. His other hand, the fake one, sat against her hip, a constant sensation but hardly distracting. She wanted more. Everything inside her wanted her legs intertwined with his, wanted the layers between them to disappear. She had had magic once. Dumbly, she wondered whether she could bring that magic back again and get rid of every inch of clothing on Hook’s body.

And, just as she was seriously considering it, Hook pulled away, panting lightly but smirking. Emma blinked, taking in a deep breath. He was far away in seconds. Emma’s lips felt empty. Her body felt as though part of it was missing. “Was that good enough, Swan?” Hook’s voice asked.

Turning, Emma found him on the other side of the car, waiting to open the door and let himself in. Emma shook herself. “Just get in the car, pirate,” she said, pursing her lips and doing the same herself.

She took her seat, adjusting the mirror habitually and putting the keys in to turn the engine on. She moved her hand to the handbrake and found Hook’s hand on top of hers. Narrowing her eyes, she started to speak but was cut off when he said, “Wait, Swan.” Emma’s lips parted in confusion.

His hand against her cheek, he pulled her in to kiss, softly but uncomfortably, across the gearstick. Emma moved her own hand to cup his face, to bring him closer. His lips were addictive. Soon, too soon, he pulled away and gave her a soft smile, not quite a smirk.

“You can go now,” he told her, nodding at her hand on the handbrake. Emma laughed a bit incredulously and did indeed start the car.

XXX

The sky had started to darken when they arrived at Hartford, a town about an hour away from New York. It was far cheaper to spend the night there than an extra night in the city. She’d booked the hotel before leaving Storybrooke, a twin room just for one night.

“Let’s get some food,” Emma said, pulling her protesting muscles out of the car and stretching. She leaned on the car roof and watched Hook do the same. He met her eyes and Emma smiled.

“We could make it another date,” he suggested, leaning forward on the other side of the car. Emma placed her chin on her hands, flat on the roof.

“Two dates in one day, you must be keen,” she teased. His eyes flashed.

“Very keen,” he responded, with a lascivious look. Emma chuckled, pulling away from the car. He came around to join her and she offered him her hand. He took it in his, lacing their fingers together and bringing the back of her hand to his mouth to kiss. Emma flushed happily. They headed to the restaurant attached to the hotel and requested a table.

When they were seated and perusing the menu, Hook pushed a few more galleons across the table to her. Emma clucked her tongue. “You don’t have to keep giving me these, you know, Hook,” she said, glancing at them.

Hook pushed them further towards her and Emma sighed, collecting them into her handbag. They were quite heavy. “You must have a lot of money, as a pirate,” she said quietly, consideringly. For a moment, she wondered whose money she was pocketing. It certainly wasn’t truthfully Hook’s. He smirked at her.

“You could say that, Swan.” Emma could hardly say anything about theft. For many years, it had been her only source of income. “You know,” he said, his eyes trained on the table. Emma furrowed her brow. “You could call me Killian.” Emma’s lips parted. “You’ve done it before.”

She had done it before. The name had tasted pleasant on her tongue and it was his real name. Emma smiled. “Okay, Killian,” she said. He smiled and Emma reached across the table to take his hand and bring it to her mouth to kiss. He snorted at her and Emma grinned, lacing their fingers together.

XXX

They wandered up to their hotel room after their meal was cleared away and paid for and having made a quick trip to their car for their things. The room was small, as expected, and there was hardly a gap between their beds, but it was there. 

“So, Swan,” Killian said, leaning against the bathroom door frame. Emma looked up at him, letting go of her holdall. “What do people in this world do after their second date?”

“Well,” she said, approaching him, “they kiss a bit like we did after our first date.” Killian smirked. Emma was close enough to wrap her arms around his waist and look up at him with a grin.

“And what do they do after their third, Swan?” he asked in low gravelly tones. Emma flushed, heat rushing to her face. Killian kissed her, cradling her face with his hand. He pulled away and then pecked her lips once.

“Shall we go to the bar?” Emma asked breathily. Killian nodded, wrapping his arm around her waist and curling his hand around her.

“Only if that counts as our third date,” he whispered, his neck bent so that the sound echoed directly into her ear. Emma squirmed away to reach the door key and then grew close to him again.

“Get me drunk enough and you’ll find out,” she teased. Killian pulled her waist slightly against him and she looked up into his eyes.

“I have no intention of taking advantage of you, Swan,” he told her seriously. Emma smiled, pleased with the answer.

At the bar, Emma bought a few different cocktails for Killian to try, enjoying the look on his face at the sight of the perfect layers of alcohol and then the way his eyes widened at the taste of a pina colada. She had a feeling that was going to be his favourite. “Which one is your favourite, Swan?” Killian nodded at the drinks.

Emma shook her head, sipping her woowoo. “They don’t have it here. I like a rum runner.” Killian raised his brows.

“That sounds like my sort of drink.” Killian drank a bit more of the fruity cocktail in front of him and then turned to her with a sigh. Emma swallowed and furrowed her brow in question at him. “Swan, I’ve- the crocodile’s son is Milah’s son.” Emma opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. Somehow, she had forgotten that fact. Killian shook his head. “And, more than that, I’ve met him.”

“You’ve met him?” Emma asked incredulously. “How? When?”

Killian sighed. “In Neverland. He was fleeing his father and ended up there, in the middle of the sea. My crew fished him out. He stayed with me for a long time. He was about Henry’s age at the time.”

“What happened?” Emma whispered, noting the regret on the pirate’s face.

“He found a picture of Milah. He wanted to leave so I- I sold him to Pan.”

“To Peter Pan?” Emma repeated, amused, but her amusement fell away at the serious look on Killian’s face.

“Pan is the greatest villain I have ever met, Swan, and he wanted Baelfire.”

“How did he survive?”

“I don’t know. He managed to leave Neverland before I did, though I am not sure how.”

“Right,” Emma said, trying to process this information.

“I just- I probably shouldn’t be there when you meet him tomorrow. The sight of me might make him flee.”

Emma nodded slowly. “Okay, but-” she shook her head “- will you be nearby, just in case I need back up?”

“Of course,” he agreed, reaching over to kiss her hand. Emma smiled at him. She would deal with whatever issues there were between the two men tomorrow and get them home, back to Storybrooke as quickly as possible.

XXX


	11. Chapter 11

Breakfast was still going on when they dilly-dallied down to the restaurant past ten in the morning. The lie-in had been a luxury for Emma, who most days woke early for work and, others, woke to the sound of her early-bird parents chatting or her always eager son asking to go somewhere. Sleeping for as long as her body wanted had made her head buzz slightly when she woke, in a pleasant way. She had stretched and blinked away sleep and then remembered the man next to her, warm and hers.

They took their seats at breakfast and ate as much and for as long as they liked. “This is marvelous, Swan,” Killian declared, leaning back on his chair and patting his stomach. Emma smiled, sipping at her coffee. “I doubt that I have eaten this well for many a year.”

“Hmm,” Emma said over the rim of her coffee. “My parents’ cooking isn’t good enough for you?” Killian’s eyes narrowed at her and she grinned, putting her mug back on her table. “We should probably get going soon.”

Killian grimaced. “Wonderful.” Emma’s arm muscle twitched, stilled and then moved again, to take Killian’s hand across the table. The look he shot her made her awkward attempt at comfort worth it.

“I’m sure he’ll forgive you if you apologise,” she said of Baelfire and Killian’s lips thinned.

“We’ll see, Swan.”

Emma shook her head, as though to clear the conversation, but then a thought struck her. “What if we don’t see Baelfire today?” Killian’s amused eyes regarded her. “We could check out New York. I can show you the sights and we can worry about Baelfire in a few days.”

“What about your family, lass?” Killian asked. “Will they not be angry that we delayed our return?”

Emma shrugged. “Who says that they need to know?” Killian’s smirk was rakish.

XXX

“What the bloody hell is this ludicracy, Swan?” Killian growled in her ear as they took their first steps out onto ice. Emma giggled, his hands at her waist as welcome as amusing. One glance back at him found floundering eyes and trembling lips.

“Calm down, pirate,” she whispered, covering his hand with hers and reaching her other to cover his wrist rather than his false hand. “It’s ice and we are skating. Surely there is ice skating in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Hmm, on real ice,” he said, sneering at the ground they were currently skating on, which was likely just plastic. Emma grinned.

“It’s the same principle. Move your feet just as you would anyway.”

“This might shock you, Swan,” Killian said as they shuffled along the edges of the rink, “but I did not spend much time ice-skating. In fact, I have never done it. Those ice-skates are mightily expensive. Of course, for a princess-”

His tone was teasing. Emma glanced over her shoulder at him with narrowed eyes. He grinned. “For a pirate, they would have been mightily easy to steal,” Emma replied.

“Ah, but not as profitable as gold.”

Emma laughed. “Of course not. Okay, pirate, let me show you how to do it.”

Within half an hour of their allotted hour’s time of skating, Killian had started to get a hang of the action and was holding himself up. The times he had slipped and fallen over had been so sweet and shocking to him that Emma had forgiven the few times that he had pulled her down with him.

“Come on, Swan, I reckon we can leave the sides, now. I think I’ve figured it out.”

And he had, to an extent. His steps - or skates - were still tentative but more confident than they had been originally and he was happy to skate along with her hand in his, as though they were in some sort of romance film. Emma couldn’t find it in herself to push him away or stop being so soft, not when Killian was looking at her with those blue eyes and watching her every move. Emma was still distracted watching him, comparing him to Bambi in her mind, when they were interrupted by the flash of a camera, from the photographer at the side of the rink.

“Buy any photos at the end!” she declared before continuing on. Killian gave Emma a funny look and she could only laugh and move her feet again, giggling at the sound of her - her what? What should she call Killian now? - telling her to slow down with a tremor in his voice.

XXX

They ended up buying the photo, of course, especially when Killian saw how sweet it was. As they walked down the road from Central Park, he was still holding it out in front of him, saying, “Look at the way you are looking at me, Swan, like a babe or a pup.”

“Shut up, pirate,” Emma growled. “You’re looking at me like a piece of meat.”

“Absolutely not,” Hook protested, pointing at him watching her. “I am looking at you like you are a very beautiful woman who I get to kiss as much as I’d like.”

“As much as I’d like,” Emma corrected and Hook smirked, passing her back the photo to put into her handbag. He reached for her hand, as he had when they were skating, and Emma felt heat come to her face as she allowed him to take it and hold it all the way to the hotel that they had checked into earlier that afternoon.

They took the elevator up to their room and even Emma was a bit disconcerted by how high they were when they reached the level that their room was on. Killian, however, was downright worried at the view from their window, his eyes wide with concern. Emma smiled. “I’ll keep you safe,” she promised with a teasing tone. Killian smiled.

“I know, Swan, my saviour.” Emma rolled her eyes at the use of the word saviour, fairly certain that Killian did not know the full extent of the meaning of that word for her. She wasn’t going to bring any of that up now, though. 

“Do you want to go and see the Brooklyn Bridge tonight?” Emma asked as she pulled a nicer top out of her suitcase, frowning at it. Perhaps they would not go to such a nice restaurant after all that night. She had overestimated the quality of her wardrobe, while Killian’s newly bought wardrobe - a product of their shopping before going ice-skating - contained good enough clothes to go somewhere posh. Emma shrugged. She didn’t necessarily want to go somewhere very posh, no matter how nice it would be. “It’s supposed to be romantic at night,” she said, waggling her eyebrows at him as she wandered over to the bathroom to change.

“Have you visited it at night previous to this?” Killian asked from the other side of the door.

“No,” she called back.

“Wonderful,” he said.

And they did walk along the Brooklyn Bridge after they had eaten at a nice Italian restaurant, hand in hand. Emma had to try hard to keep her smiles under check. She had never imagined being in such a romantic couple. And the very word made her insides squirm but she ignored it. Her anxieties would not take over her happiness, tonight, nor for the next few days. These were her days of being happy with Killian and not worrying about anything except him.

“We should stop for a minute,” Killian said, halfway across, tugging her hand over to the very edge of the pathway. Emma furrowed her brow but followed his wishes, and they were looking over the river, the moon above sparkling down on it. “It is no ocean, of course,” Killian started, “but I could not resist kissing you with this view, Swan.”

He gave her no chance to respond before he was kissing her. Emma fell into it with no complaint, her right hand finding his hair and her left his neck. She could feel the hard press of his false hand pressing into the small of her back and his hand hovering in the air by her cheek as though he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to cup it or not.

They were interrupted, of course, by a passing pair of drunks but Emma and Killian could only laugh, her head resting on his shoulder as they looked out at the river. He offered her a sip of his hip flask which she took happily. “I know who I want to be, Swan.” Emma felt her heart speed up and she turned to him, meeting his eyes. “I want to be someone good enough to deserve your affection.”

Emma smiled and kissed him once, softly. “I’ve not felt this way about someone in a long time. It scares me a bit.”

“I know,” Killian said, squeezing her closer to him. “I am sure that my past can’t help that but I promise that I will never leave you.” Emma drew breath in sharply at that big statement. “As long as you want me, Swan, I’ll be here.” Emma smiled easily at that and tipped her head up again to kiss him.

XXX

“Hurry up, Swan!” Killian called into the bathroom. Emma looked at her watch and swore, dropping her hairbrush and deciding that her hair was fine down against her back, even if it looked a bit frizzy at the front. She stepped into her boots, zipped them up and then stepped out of the bathroom.

Killian grinned and she felt as well as saw his eyes raking up and down her body. “Come on, pirate,” she said exasperatedly.

“There’s always time to appreciate perfection, Swan.” Emma flushed but shook her hair at him, heading out of the door to the elevator. “I’ve never seen your hair like that before.” He hurried to join her in the lift.

“No,” she agreed. “I usually put it up or tie the front back.”

“I like it.” Emma met his eyes, quirking a brow. “More hair to play with.” To demonstrate, he reached over to pick a strand up and dropped it again. Emma laughed. “What time is the tour?”

“Soon,” Emma said as the lift reached the ground floor. She tugged Killian out of the lift and they dashed away.

XXX

When they finally reached the stop to get on the cruise to see the Statue of Liberty, they were actually a few minutes early, principally because Killian took such long strides that Emma was practically running to keep up with him. His punctuality, he claimed, came from time in the navy, new information to Emma that had her immensely interested in hearing his entire life story. 

Killian leaned against the bars and, again, he had a photo in front of him, this time from the reusable camera that they had purchased at Niagara Falls that morning, on the tour trip they had done. When the hotel had advertised it, it had been too much of a good deal to pass up and Emma had never actually been. It had been an early morning, but entirely worth it.

Emma peered at the photo that Killian was appreciating, finding it to be the silly one they had taken with the camera backwards. Emma had warned Killian, after suggesting it, that they rarely worked out well because of the angle - and this one certainly hadn’t - but Killian liked it when they had it developed, despite Emma’s half-laughing smile and the fact that Killian’s hair had been cut out.

“This is my favourite one,” Killian said fondly. “I like the ones I took of you but this one is my favourite.” Emma felt her face heat at the memory of Killian’s obsession with taking pictures of her in front of the falls. An older couple had commented on how sweet it was and then offered to take a picture of them both, which they had accepted. Some of the pictures that Killian had taken had actually been quite complimentary, but none as much as the one that the couple - or rather the woman in the couple - had taken, in which they were both smiling incredibly broadly, snuggled in together to ward off a chill. Emma had found herself glancing at it every so often, marvelling at what a good couple they made.

“Killian,” Emma said, speaking before her brain had fully made the decision. He looked up in askance and she smiled. “I just- I don’t want this to get ruined.” His look was quizzical and Emma sighed. “I just want to stay here forever, with you.”

Killian slipped the photo into his pocket and shifted so that his hand caressed her arm. “I think your parents and son might have something to say about that, Swan.”

Emma smiled. “I know and I don’t mean it literally. I mean, figuratively, I want to stay here in this moment with you, smiling so much that my nose crinkles.” Killian chuckled at the reference to the photo and then bent down to kiss her.

“I understand, Swan. I feel in a similar manner.” Emma cupped his cheek and looked into his eyes. “I never thought I would have anything like this again, after Milah, and I know I don’t deserve it-”

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” Emma said huskily, cutting him off. He kissed her once. “After Neal, I never thought that I would be able to lower my walls to let somebody in again.”

“I am so glad that it was I that you invited in, love.”

“I’m glad I did too.” Squeezing his cheek once, Emma moved her hand to his waist and pulled herself close to him. “I trust you with my heart, pirate,” she confessed into his chest. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“I will care for it as long as you like,” he said and, when Emma looked up, she found that his eyes were grave in a way that comforted and reassured her. Nothing else to be said, Emma kissed him again.

XXX

When they returned to the hotel that evening, they were cold but happy, exhilarated by the boat ride. Emma tugged Killian over to the elevator, eager to be in their cozy bed and to poke him with her cold feet. When the elevator arrived, Emma kissed Killian in an attempt to steal some of his warmth. He chuckled lowly against her lips and deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around her.

By the time they reached their floor, they were stumbling along the corridor to their hotel room. Against the door, Emma found herself with the handle pushing into the small of her back as Killian urgently pressed her back into it, in his apparent attempts to kiss her into tomorrow.

“Ah, ah,” Emma groaned into his mouth as she attempted to fumble with the door key to allow them entrance to their room - and the privacy that she so dearly wanted.

“Sorry, lass,” Killian said in a low and husky tone, pulling away for long enough for her to undo the door and then pushing her into the room and onto the bed. Only when they reached the bed did he seem to realise where they were and what they were doing. He blinked, his eyes dark, and said again, “Sorry - I -”

Emma cut him off with a kiss, sliding her hands beneath his shirt. He met her eyes and pulled away from his lips. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice deep and gruff. Emma nodded hastily, trying to convey her emotions with her eyes. She must have been successful because he kissed her again and they didn’t speak much after that.


	12. Chapter 12

Emma woke without an alarm, without the sound of her parents’ chatter downstairs, without Henry hammering up and down the stairs each time that he remembered or forgot something. She hummed slightly as she opened her eyes, wincing immediately. They had left the drapes open, far too distracted by their evening’s activities.

Speaking of, Emma turned to the side, propping herself up on her shoulder so that she could look at Killian, her eyes drifting to where the sheets were slipping down his body, his flat stomach, a wonderful v-shaped muscle just above his-

“Stop checking me out, Swan,” he murmured. Emma smiled and his eyes flicked open. They were blue and bright. Emma leaned down to kiss him softly and slowly, as though they had all the time in the world. She pulled away and leaned back against the pillows, her arm folded beneath her head. She sighed. “You’re very relaxed,” he commented.

“Mm,” Emma agreed, scooching closer to him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his body. She pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “That might have something to do with the amazing sex I had last night.”

Killian chuckled, cupping her face in his hand and kissing her. “I shall have to have a discussion with this bloke,” he said softly against her lips. “Ask for some advice,” he continued, peppering her mouth with soft, nibbly kisses. Emma’s lips spread against his. “Where can I find him?”

Emma pushed her body even closer to his, feeling his taut muscles pressing pleasurably against hers. “You are very cocky, Captain,” she purred, bringing her left hand up to tickle the back of his neck softly.

A gasp of laughter escaped Emma as Killian flipped her over and pinned her down onto the mattress, holding himself above her with his hook and hand. Emma met his dark eyes. “My cockiness is well-deserved, as you know, love,” he said, holding her eye contact for a moment and then burying his face in her neck and his hand between her thighs.

XXX

Emma bounced back and forth on her heels, glancing in the direction that she had left Hook, at an empty bar that had run out of rum. He had not been impressed and had been discussing his favourite liquor with the amused barkeep as Emma had left to find Gold’s son.

This was the hardest part of the trip. In fact, the interaction with the mark was the hardest part of any job like this. Finding them was often complicated but generally without major issue. Actually confronting them and catching them was the tricky part and where, if something was going to go wrong, it would.

And Gold’s son was an unknown. Emma usually had information on her marks, usually knew what buttons to press. Here, she was blind. She had buzzed the apartment that was clearly Baelfire’s - the one without a name tag. It would have been less conspicuous to have put a fake name in. She wouldn’t have known which one was hiding then.

Finally, a voice came onto the buzzer. “Hello?” he said, his tone making clear that he was not expecting anybody. He didn’t have much of an accent. He was certainly not from New York.

“I have a delivery for you,” Emma said.

“A delivery?” Baelfire said. Emma wondered briefly if there were accents in the Enchanted Forest like there were here. “From who?”

Emma put on an exasperated air. “I don’t know. It’s a brown box. Do you want it or not?”

She heard Baelfire tut. “I’ll come down.” Emma rolled her eyes into the buzzer but agreed. Down here, he had an easy out. He could run away. Hopefully, he was in worse shape than Emma. She tapped her foot as she waited, interested in whether Baelfire would look like Gold or his mother. Emma almost hoped that he looked like Milah. She would have liked to have known what Hook’s former love looked like.

Finally, Emma heard the inner door open. She glanced through the window, feeling a twinge of recognition. Baelfire was not that tall, like his father, and he had his head down, showing that the hair was similar too. She looked at the door and then her eyes widened and she looked back at him.

Their eyes met through the window. Emma swallowed. He had frozen too, stopped walking.

She had no idea how long they stood there for. Her mind didn’t race or freak out. It only froze on one word, over and over. Neal. Neal. Neal.

Standing in front of her was Neal, the man who had impregnated and betrayed her. Henry’s father.

Emma exhaled slowly. The door opened. Emma blinked. She hadn't noticed him open it, or even move towards the door.

“Emma,” he breathed. Now that she was looking at him, she recognised the accentless voice. How could she have not heard it before? Emma shook her head. She was in the wrong place. She had to be in the wrong place. She looked up at the flats and then down at Neal. This was where Gold had said he would be.

“I must be in the wrong place,” Emma stammered. Neal’s eyes narrowed.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

Emma shook her head, looking around. She wished Hook were here. She’d feel less panicky if he could just speak to her, could calm her down. His voice was soft and steady. She inhaled and then exhaled. “I’m looking for-” Emma swallowed. “I’m looking for someone.”

Neal took a step back. “Looking for who?” he asked cautiously. Emma met his eyes and narrowed hers.

“Could I be looking for you?” she asked, her voice as steady as it could be. Tears were climbing her throat. She had never imagined to find this man again, not since she’d left Tallahassee.

Neal scoffed. “Just tell me why you’re here, Em. I-”

“Don’t call me Em,” Emma cut off, a rage replacing the panic in her chest. “You abandoned me, betrayed me. You do not get to call me Em.”

Neal closed his eyes. “Look, Emma, I - We should talk somewhere else. I have to explain and I think- I think that you’ll understand some of it already but we should talk.” Emma didn’t want to talk. She wanted to go and find Baelfire and go home. She wanted to go back a few hours, to her morning with Hook and never buzz on this apartment. She closed her eyes against tears. “There’s a bar down the road.”

“No,” Emma said suddenly, meeting his eyes. His brow creased. Emma’s mind finally connected the dots, finally understood what this meant. This man, who had some of Gold in his features, in his hair. This was Gold’s son. This was Baelfire. This was Neal and he was Baelfire and that meant that Neal was Gold’s son - that meant that Henry was Gold’s grandson - and Milah’s.

Emma breathed shakily. “You were always running from something,” she said. “Always scared that someone would find you. You’d never talk about your parents. No wonder.”

“Emma,” Neal said and he was looking around himself. Emma wondered what she would do if he ran. Would she follow him? Or let him go? How could she bring Neal back to Storybrooke, where she lived, where she was happy, where Henry was happy?

“Did you know?” she asked, fear grasping at her throat. “Did you know when you met me, who I was? Did you do it all on purpose? Send me to prison and hope that I’d never break the curse?”

Neal’s features were tight. “I didn’t even know about the curse until I was with you, Emma, and then Pinocchio came and I - I just -”

Emma met his eyes. “Pinocchio?” she said in horror. August. She shook her head and exhaled. “I can’t deal with any of this - crap, Neal.” She pulled her handcuffs from her pocket and he flinched, moved, but she had done this too many times. She had one of his hands cuffed before he was far enough away. She cuffed the other to herself. There was no way he could get away, no matter how much he wanted to, how much she wanted to.

“If your father wasn’t protecting my family, if I didn’t have to do this to end my deal, then I’d leave you here,” she said flatly.

“You were stupid to make a deal with my father,” Neal said bitterly. Emma closed her eyes, unsure if she could put up with Neal now. She could just let him go but that would mean possibly bringing Gold’s wrath down on her - and onto her family. Neal would want to leave Storybrooke as soon as possible. As long as he never saw Henry, then Emma’s family, Emma’s happiness would be safe.

Emma hated the way Neal looked at her when he saw the bug, pity and something else that she ignored. “This is kidnap, you realise,” Neal told her as she shoved him into the car, handcuffing him to the door handle. “There are people who will miss me.”

Rolling her eyes, Emma locked the car. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She left him, walked around the corner and collapsed against the wall. She breathed. Every memory that she had suppressed, of Neal, of prison, of that awful day that she had given Henry away, of the grief that came afterwards, of the birthdays and Christmasses that she had remembered that boy she had given away. Every one of them came flooding back and she soon found herself on the floor.

When she flet the hand on her cheek, she flinched away, falling backwards onto her hands. She opened her eyes, wide, reaching for her keys. Better a poor weapon than no weapon. But then her eyes cleared and she saw Killian. She let out a raw sob and he pulled her to her feet, cupping her face in his hand and her back with his hook.

“What happened, love?” he asked, his voice low and grumbly. And she told him that Baelfire was Neal. His face was unreadable. He drew back to look in her eyes, searching for something. Emma was not sure what. “What do you want to do?”

Emma shook her head. Killian wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumb. “I want to go back to Storybrooke and check on my parents and Henry.”

Killian nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do, lass.”

XXX

Seeing fury on Baelfire’s face was not a surprise to Killian. He sat in the seat beside Emma, in her death machine. They planned to travel through the night, to not stop driving until they reached Storybrooke. There would be no romantic stops along the way as there had been on the journey to the metropolis.

Killian looked up as Emma opened the door and slid into the car.

“What the hell is Hook doing here?” Bae demanded immediately, his voice furious. Killian did not engage him. He knew that Emma would not appreciate any fighting between them.

“None of your business, Neal,” she said, glancing behind her as she always did when she started the vehicle.

“This is the man that ruined my life,” Bae pressed. Killian glanced out of the window, ignoring the trickle of guilt that ran from his throat to his stomach.

“Don’t care,” Emma grunted, turning the music box between them on. Killian wanted to reach across and touch her thigh, her arm, something, to calm her, to make her relax. They had had such a wonderful excursion. Baelfire had ruined that.

They did stop for some nourishment, however, before they reached Storybrooke. Emma had been desperate for it. She ordered Neal to behave and stepped out of the car. Killian did not look at Baelfire as he followed her. She reached for his hand. Killian swallowed and took it, pondering briefly what Baelfire would think of their relationship. When she came closer and pressed her face into his shoulder, he decided that it did not matter.

After purchasing some of the fried food that Emma enjoyed, they made their way back to her yellow box and Emma set off again. “How do you plan to eat, love?” Killian asked quietly, having passed Baelfire some food without a word. Baelfire had grunted his thanks.

“You can pass me food,” Emma told him. Killian did so, as ably as he could. She had a food called onion rings, which seemed to be onion fried in breadcrumbs and fat, not an appealing snack to Killian’s taste, along with a burger, which was a food that he could get behind, having had one himself, with fries, another wonderful invention of this world.

“Pass me a fry,” Emma said when she had finished her own food. Killian looked up at her, affronted.

“You’ve finished,” he reminded her. “This is my food.”

“This is my car and I can kick you out of it,” she said without looking at him. Killian scoffed, rolled his eyes and passed her a single fry. Rather than take it with her hand, she retrieved it with her teeth, biting half of it before winking at him. Killian smirked at her. “Another one, please,” she said before she swallowed.

“These are my fries, Swan. Would you have given me one of your disgusting onion inventions?”

“You never asked and found out.”

Killian had a feeling that that meant no. He acquiesced and passed her a few more fries, eating the rest of them hurriedly so that she could not pillage any more. “Drink, please.” Killian lifted her drink so that the odd circular contraption reached her lips and liquid moved up it. Emma said that it was called a straw, which didn’t make much sense to Killian, as it was clearly not made of straw.

“Emma, do you even know who this is?” Baelfire’s voice demanded. Killian had nearly forgotten about his presence in the car.

“Yes,” Emma said when Killian had taken away her drink. “Captain Hook, Killian Jones. Pirate, scourge of the seas, etcetera.” Scourge of the seas was a lovely way to name him. Killian rather liked that.

“He abandoned me, did he tell you that? He gave me to Pan!”

Emma snorted. Killian glanced at her. He knew that she did not like Neal but what Killian had done was certainly not a trifle to be joked about. “Look, Neal, I don’t care what you think about Killian. Once you’ve spoken to your father, you can go back to New York for all I care.”

“As though my father will just let me go. You’re trapping me, Emma, back with him.” Killian’s trickle of guilt expanded and filled his stomach. He was giving Milah’s son back to Rumplestiltskin. What would she think of this?

“That’s your problem, Neal. I’m doing this for my family.”

“For the king and queen,” Baelfire said, an almost mocking tone in his voice, twisted and insincere. Emma scowled.

“My parents have nothing to do with you.”

“They had nothing to do with you,” Baelfire corrected harshly. Killian watched as Emma’s hackles visibly raised. Her shoulders hunched. She pursed her lips and said nothing, though. Killian took his eyes back to the road.

It wouldn’t be long until they were back in Emma’s Storybrooke but Killian did not imagine that their troubles would end there.


	13. Chapter 13

Emma dropped Hook off at the loft before taking Neal to Gold’s place. Having Hook and Gold in the same vicinity was never, ever, a good idea. Neal tutted upon seeing the grandeur of Gold’s house. “Things changed for him,” he muttered and Emma allowed him some sympathy. It could not be easy growing up as Rumplestiltskin’s son, even if she did not know the full story behind it. She also knew that Killian had not helped when he abandoned him.

Emma escorted Neal out of the car, still in his handcuffs. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to run, not while she was so exhausted. She couldn’t wait to get into her bed and briefly hoped that Hook would be asleep in it already when she arrived, so that she could snuggle into his warmth and fall asleep to the smell of rum and the sea.

“Bae.”

Gold’s voice was a reverent whisper. Emma had not heard him open the door. She blinked and shoved Neal forward to Gold. “Why is he handcuffed?” Gold demanded, halting Emma’s retreat. She sighed.

“Because I wasn’t sure that he’d come or that he wouldn’t run. He was a flight risk. Protocol.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Neal added in angrily. Regret laced Gold’s features. Emma looked away, feeling as though she were intruding.

“You can leave now, Miss Swan.”

“Happily,” Emma muttered and turned to go back to her car. The sooner she was inside, in her pyjamas and in bed, the sooner she would be happy.

“Yeah, go and fuck your pirate, Emma,” Neal said. Emma whirled back around, feeling her face heat.

“I will,” she snapped. “He gives a fuck about me. He won’t abandon me when things get complicated, Neal.”

Neal’s nostrils flared. “I left you so that you could fulfil your destiny.”

Emma scoffed. “I could have fulfilled my destiny a hell of a lot easier if I’d been able to trust anybody, but I stopped being able to do that when you set me up for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Neal opened his mouth but his father cut across him, “Henry’s waiting, Miss Swan.” Emma pulled her lips to a tight line, meeting Gold’s eyes. Something flashed in them, like recognition. Did he understand? Was he putting things together? Gold was a clever man. It was possible that -

Emma shook her head and turned. “Who’s Henry?” Neal asked.

Emma continued walking, quickening her pace. She wasn’t far enough away to miss Gold asking Neal, “How long ago did you know Miss Swan?”

Fear blossomed in her stomach. She turned back around. Neal hadn’t responded but Gold had already made his conclusion, Emma could see. “My son deserves to know if he’s got a son, Miss Swan,” Gold growled. Emma swallowed.

“Your son shouldn’t have abandoned his seventeen-year-old girlfriend in prison,” she told him and then, finally, she did leave, wondering how quickly she could get Henry out of Storybrooke, just for a few days, just to be safe.

When she reached the loft, her muscles protested her ascending the stairs and then turning the key in the door - and then her brain protested when she saw Killian making the bed up on the sofa. “The hell are you doing?” she whisper-demanded.

Killian met her eyes. “Making the bed, lass.”

“Come to my bed,” she said, closing the door with a click.

“Love, your parents-”

“Don’t care,” Emma grunted. “Come upstairs.”

It didn’t take any more than that to convince Killian - though she did have to convince him not to tidy up the bedding he had started to set out - and then they climbed the staircase together and collapsed into bed. While Killian got changed, Emma only took off her clothes and slept in her underwear.

“Are you trying to tempt me, lass?” he asked lowly when he saw her. Emma, her eyes closed, shook her head.

“Nope. Tired. Sleepy. Lazy. Come here.”

Killian chuckled and did, pressing a kiss to her cheek and then wrapping his arms around her. Emma let out a sigh. They were safe.

XXX

“What happened with Bae last night, lass?” Killian asked quietly over their coffees in the morning. Emma watched as he sipped and grimaced. She could hear Henry crashing about upstairs, could hear David singing in the shower and Mary Margaret humming as she dressed.

“Gold figured out that Henry is Neal’s,” she said as quietly as she could. Hook exhaled.

“I’m sorry, lass.” He held her hand across the table. “I’ll protect you, okay? You and Henry. It will be well.” Emma smiled at his offer and brought his hand to her mouth to kiss. He gave her an amused look.

“What, pirate? Do women not kiss the men’s hands in Fairyland?”

“Fairyland?” Hook said incredulously. Emma rolled her eyes fondly.

“You know,” she said, after drinking more of her coffee, “Neal hurt me so much.”

“I know, Swan,” Hook said, rubbing his calloused thumb across Emma’s palm.

“I don’t want him to hurt Henry in the same way.” Emma looked down at the table. “I want to go back to two days ago, do it all differently, never even find Neal.”

“Agreed, love. That hotel room is far preferable to this.”

Emma snorted, gave him a knowing look. “I bet it is, Hook.” She leaned across the table and kissed him. “Do you have to leave?”

Hook nodded. “I ought to check on the Jolly, love. I wouldn’t want your magicless water hurting the magic wood.” Emma knew he was teasing but that he was truly worried about his ship, here, given that parts of her did rely on magic.

“The true woman in your life,” Emma teased.

Hook scoffed, a smirk on his pretty lips. “Unfortunately, the Jolly cannot do what you-” A clearing of a throat interrupted them. Emma sprang back, looking up to find her father watching them with disapproval. Hook gave her an amused, knowing look and stood, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I will see you this evening, Swan.” She nodded and watched him leave.

“You could try to look a little less disapproving,” she said to David, “you know, because this isn’t the 1800s.”

“Even in the twenty-first century, most parents don’t approve of their daughters dating criminals,” David said, sitting opposite her and pouring his own coffee. Emma sighed, brushing her hand across her face. “How was New York?” The chuckle that emerged from Emma’s lips was slightly hysterical. She told him everything about Neal.

XXX

The Jolly looked as lovely as she had before Killian had left her to go to Emma’s large city. He ascended her and looked across at the ocean. He had dallied in bed for longer than he should have. Usually he was up with the lark. Emma was more of a night owl and liked to lie in in the mornings, rather than appreciate the sun’s hours. And the previous night they had arrived back in Storybrooke very late so Killian had rather deserved his extra hours’ sleep.

Still, he would have liked to have appreciated a sunrise over the harbour. Perhaps he would bring Emma one night and they could sip her coffee while they watched the sunrise.

There was a sound behind him, a sort of tapping. Killian whirled around, thinking of his cutlass in his cabin. He smirked. “Cora, how lovely to see you.”

She took two steps towards him and then slapped him right across the face. Killian flinched. “What the bloody hell was that for?” he demanded. Cora’s eyes darted behind him. Killian turned to find Regina emerging from below deck. He scowled. “It’s bad form to go below a man’s deck without his permission, your highness. Though, I must say, it’s lovely to see a family reunited.”

“We had a deal, Hook,” Cora said. Regina was stepping closer, making Hook feel as though the walls were closing in on him. “You were going to seduce Swan for information so that we could win Regina’s son back.”

“I did seduce Swan,” Hook interjected.

Cora’s lips thinned. Regina walked around to join them, her deadly eyes focussed on Hook, who smirked. “Having her fall in love with you isn’t the same as seduction, Hook.”

“What can I say? I have a winning personality to go with my flawless exterior.”

“Where’s the information, Hook?” Cora demanded.

Hook shrugged. “I don’t need anything from you so why the hell would I help you?”

He felt the air leave his lungs and jolted, leaning his head back in an attempt to breathe. He met Regina’s narrowed eyes and she let go. “How about your life, Hook?” the queen asked. “Is that not enough encouragement?”

Hook cocked his head to one side. If he were honest, there wasn’t much that he had to say anyway and anything that he did know about Henry, he was sure Regina would know already. But he still wasn’t going to speak. The last thing Emma needed was to mistrust him, not when she had Neal in the town to remind her that she didn’t like to trust people generally.

“Don’t play the hero, now, Hook,” Regina said. “You can’t truly believe that Emma will want to be with you for good. Villains never get their happy ending.”

Killian set his jaw, looking out to the ocean, ignoring her taunting. What did she know? One bitter villain did not make the rule.

Regina chuckled. “Come, Mother. I want to see how this one works out.” With twin smirks, they disappeared, leaving Hook to his own thoughts.

He made his way below deck and into his chambers. Regina had not entered these. He’d had a witch place a curse on the door, a long time ago, to make sure that nobody could open the door except Hook. It was unbreakable, even by another witch.

Sinking down onto his bed, he pulled his drawing of Milah from his drawer. It was a good likeness, one that he’d paid for once in a port. Milah had not wanted him to do it, had found it soft.

“I don’t know what you’d want me to do, Milah,” he said honestly. “I don’t know if you’d want me to kill the Crocodile or to protect Baelfire from him or to help Emma to allow him some time with Henry.” He shook his head. “I’m going to pursue Emma, going to be a man that she can be proud of.”

With a smile, he said, “I think that that man is someone you could be proud of too. I’m sorry that I wasn’t ever that man for you.” He placed the picture back down on the small table. “I’m ready for this, now, for a new chapter.”

XXX

Mary Margaret came to join them for breakfast soon after and Emma was about to repeat her spiel when Henry came skidding into the kitchen, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Hi! When did you get home?” he demanded.

“Late last night,” Emma said, chuckling. “Everyone was asleep.”

“Hook stayed,” David said with a fake smile. Emma scowled at him as her mother’s head shot up. This must have been how it was for teenagers who had boys stay over at their parents’ house. Maybe she should start looking at houses of her own if this was how things were going to continue. Maybe she would be able to get her head around her parents being her parents if she didn’t live with them.

“How was New York?” her son asked as he took a seat and poured his cereal.

“It was good,” Emma said with a smile.

“What took you so long? Could you not find Mr Gold’s son?” Her father gave her a look that she ignored.

“Hook and I did some sightseeing. We took some pictures, actually. They’re upstairs. We can show you later.”

“Are you sure we’ll want to see them?” her father said under his breath. Emma glared at him and he gave her an apologetic smile.

“So, what happened here?” she asked, looking between the three of them. Her parents shared a look and it was not until Mary Margaret and Henry left for school that Emma understood.

“So, there was a giant, Regina is working with Cora, Cora killed my grandmother and Mary Margaret’s - what? servant? - Cora has Rumple’s dagger and she can control him with it - and Belle has forgotten who she is? Anything else I’ve missed?”

David shook his head. “I don’t want you to worry about any of that. You need to concentrate on this Neal guy and telling Henry before he finds out from somebody else.”

Emma exhaled slowly. “How am I supposed to tell him that I lied to him?”

David sighed. “I don’t know, Emma, but you have to. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t and he might never forgive you. He trusts you but that might end if -”

“If he finds out I lied to him.” Emma inhaled. “Alright. I’ll figure it out, today, and tell him as soon as he gets home.”

“Good,” David said, inclining his head. “I’ve put you on the rota for tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Emma said with a grin. “I’m going back to bed for a nap.”


End file.
